Pulled back from the brink, ex-patients reunited with rescuers who gave them 'second chance'

FDNY members, including one from Long Island, were among several first responders who were reunited Wednesday with patients they brought back from the brink.

West Hempstead resident Lt. Kevin Mahoney, assigned to Engine Company 43 in the Bronx, along with firefighters Andrew Ramos, Kheilen McHenry, Diocar Vega and Daniel Moynihan met with Delaney Soto, 7, of the Bronx, who in 2019, suffered a cardiac arrest, the FDNY said.

“You think about how she’s here today and her mom is still able to enjoy her,” Mahoney said.

Acting FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh said since the annual Second Chance ceremony started more than 25 years ago, more than 200 patients have reunited with members of the FDNY who saved them.

“It is a joy to witness the reunions, the happy tears of patients as they greet the members who saved them and the wide smiles of the responders who know they saved a life,” Kavanaugh said at the Brooklyn ceremony.

Among the 10 who met with with FDNY members who saved them was Jane Harris, 70, of Brooklyn, who in October 2019, suffered a cardiac incident.

On July 23, 2019, members of Engine Company 43, which included Mahoney, responded to an apartment in the Bronx after Delaney's mother, Kathrin Rivera, called 911 because her daughter started to vomit, fell to the floor and was unresponsive. Firefighters learned Delaney was in cardiac arrest when they did CPR, attached an automated external defibrillator and gave her one shock. Delaney later had a pulse and was eventually taken to the Children's Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx, where she had an internal defibrillator implanted.

Paramedics Frederick Dorner and Travis Kessel, of FDNY Station 18 in the Bronx, along with EMTs Shakeel Ajaz, Sandra Henriques, of FDNY Station 14 in the Bronx, and Lts. Joseph Farrell and Omran Khan, also of FDNY Station 118, all helped provide care to Delaney.

“The whole team that it takes between the EMTs, paramedics and  firefighters to make something like this happen,” Mahoney said, is “good to come together for something positive as opposed to something negative in any situation.”