Huntington Hospital event touts community of lifesaving caregivers

Sharon Collins credits her survival to God's guiding hand.

"God had everything that needed to be in place for me to still be here," Collins said in an interview Monday at Huntington Hospital.

Last March, Collins, 58, of Huntington Station, collapsed outside a Greenlawn diner and was near death before eventually being taken by ambulance to Huntington. She was back at the hospital Monday to thank the people who played a role in saving her life.

They included a friend and co-worker who performed CPR on her at the scene,  first responders,  a bystander who happened to carry a defibrillator in his vehicle,  Huntington Hospital staff and a mystery man driving a gold Jeep who was the first to spot her unconscious in the parking lot of Healey's Inn in Greenlawn. The man alerted customers in the diner and called 911.

"While they were working on me, he walked away and walked down Broadway," Collins recalled someone telling her.

A paramedic with the East Northport Fire Department, Taylor Anthony, who responded to the March 15 call along with the Greenlawn Fire Department, said the man flagged her ambulance down and directed her to the remote area where Collins had collapsed.

"I would really like to meet him," Collins said of the man. He was described as a "hippie type," she added, with long hair and wearing a tie-dyed shirt. The hospital staff has attempted to track him down, but so far his identity remains a mystery.

Collins, a parish secretary at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Greenlawn, was joined Monday by more than two dozen others as part of Huntington Hospital's "Thank a Lifesaver" event, a program of the hospital's wellness committee.

Jen Goebel, co-chair of the hospital's wellness committee, a part of the Northwell Health system, said the lifesaver initiative, begun last year, is a way to connect patients to caregivers.

"Actually, day-to-day we don't always see our impact," Goebel said. Events like Monday's, she added, allows patients say thank you. "It's so rewarding," Goebel said.

The live-saving efforts last March followed what began as "a very normal day," Collins recalled to those gathered. "I had no issues. Had a great lunch."

She left her lunch companions to retrieve a book of photographs from her car. As Collins walked out, she took a phone call from a priest at St. Francis and talked about her 2-year-old granddaughter.

The priest and her granddaughter share a birthday, Collins added.

"And I said, 'Oh I got the best video and I'm going to send it you.' As I was walking out of the building, I was sending a text message to this priest and never got a response from him because by the time he responded, I was on the ground."

Her friend and co-worker, Anita Modelewski, said she had been trained in CPR, but performed it for the first time on Collins.

"I just remember thinking she seems to be gone a little longer than I would have expected," Modelewski told the hospital audience. "As we were sitting there finishing our lunch, a gentleman at the back door asked 'Does anybody here know CPR? I think there's a lady dead in the parking lot.' " 

Not long after, Kevin Dearie, a retired critical care nurse, veteran firefighter and ex-chief of the Centerport Fire Department, stepped in. Dearie recalled at Monday's event that he had noticed a commotion at the back of the inn and saw Modelewski doing CPR on Collins.

"She definitely was blue," he said of Collins. "She wasn't breathing at all. By the grace of God, I happened to have an AED [an automated external defibrillator] in my car. ... We shocked her and we continued CPR. We could see her breathing slowly came back."

When she first arrived at the hospital, Collins said she lost vision for a short time. Dr. Sue Esposito, an emergency room physician who treated Collins, said that because of the vision loss, doctors initially thought she may have had a stroke. But now they think the temporary blindness was due to a lack of oxygen when Collins' heart stopped beating, Esposito said, adding that an internal defibrillator has been placed inside Collins' chest. 

"[It's] really amazing how all the stars aligned for you before I even met you," Esposito told Collins. "I'm truly honored that I became a part of your story, this amazing story."

By Olivia Winslow

olivia.winslow@newsday.com@newsollie