‘He was dead in my eyes.’ Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony brings man in car back to life.
Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony was on his way home Tuesday night when he saved a man’s life while stopped at an intersection, the sheriff’s office said.
At around 7 p.m., Tony had stopped at the intersection of Atlantic Boulevard and Riverside Drive, the sheriff’s office said. The light turned green, but the Cadillac in front of Tony didn’t go.
Some drivers grew angry and drove around the car to catch the light. Tony, too, said he became impatient when the driver made him miss his light, but he had a feeling something was up.
“I’ve been an officer for several years and knew something wasn’t right,” he said.
Thinking the driver was distracted or on his phone, Sheriff Tony honked his horn but the car’s brake lights stayed a solid red and there was no movement inside.
Tony turned on his lights and sirens, told Coral Springs dispatch what was going on and walked up to the car, he said.
He saw a driver in his 50s slumped on the window.
Tony’s first thought was, “Here’s a drunk.”
But then he got into the car, pushed the driver back and noticed the colorization on the driver’s face. He wasn’t breathing and had no pulse.
“He was dead in my eyes,” Tony said.
Tony quickly put the car in park, got the driver out the car and started to perform CPR. Not only has Tony been an officer for 13 years but also a trainer and CPR instructor for many more, he said.
He performed four or five cycles of chest compression, which led the man to breath again, but only with a mild pulse.
As Tony was waiting for dispatch, he monitored the man. He knew there was a chance the driver could revert back to not breathing, which he did.
Tony began a second round of chest compressions and got him breathing again. Paramedics arrived and took him to Broward Health Coral Springs, where he was treated and later released.
“You can’t become complacent when they are suffering from a medical situation,” he said.
Tony performed CPR on the man for six minutes and waited four minutes for police to arrive. He says if he didn’t do this, or someone else didn’t stop, the man would not be alive today.
“This is what we do as first responders,” he said. “This is what we have signed up to do.”
BSO did not identify the man.
Tony advises that if a person were to find themselves in the same situation, they should put their hazard lights on and start trying to get the person in the car to a place where they can safely perform CPR.
“It is important people understand there is nothing extraordinary about the ordinary. I can assure you someone is going to do CPR if not today then sometime in the next few minutes.”
This story was originally published February 19, 2020 at 5:31 PM.
%20Cropped%20(2).jpg)