Bystanders in Newport's Braga Park quick to administer CPR to stranger in cardiac arrest

NEWPORT — It was a Thursday evening and close to dinnertime, so it was an unusual day and time for the women to bring their children to the playground.

It was a good thing they did.

Had Sarah Bularzik and Blair Saiz, both of Newport, not brought their children to Braga Park to play that night, they wouldn’t have seen the Newport man collapse while he was out for a jog. And he very well may not have survived.

The two women, along with Dan Horne, of Las Vegas; Andrew Parks, of Newport; and 911 telecommunicator Kenneth Cohen, were the recent recipients of life saving awards from the Newport Fire Department.

They were recognized for their efforts on July 29 to help the man who’d collapsed while pushing his young daughter in a stroller. Between the two of them, Bularzik and Saiz have five children and they watched them play that night when Saiz saw the man fall.

“We both rushed over with our strollers and our kids,” Bularzik said.

Bularzik had her 10-month-old child in a carrier, and “I took the baby off the carrier (and) I just started doing chest compressions,” she said. Saiz had called 911, and Cohen provided cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) instructions to Saiz, who then relayed those instructions to Bularzik.

Bularzik did have prior CPR experience, she said. “My form was probably not right at first,” she said, but a man's life was at stake. “For those people who think they don’t know how to do CPR, that’s how I felt, even though I’d been trained,” she said. “Just try.”

“By the bystanders starting CPR, they allowed for the patient to have a better chance to survive this,” said Dr. Joseph Lauro, EMS medical director for Newport Hospital and the Newport Fire Department. “And most certainly he would not have survived without the bystanders.”

“Without bystander CPR, your chance of survival from a cardiac arrest decreases by about 10% every minute,” Lauro said.

Cardiac arrest is different from a heart attack, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A heart attack happens when blood flow to the heart is blocked. The person suffering a heart attack is still talking and breathing and does not need CPR, but they need to get to a hospital as soon as possible. Heart attacks increase the risk of going into cardiac arrest, according to the CDC.

When a person's heart stops beating, that person is in cardiac arrest and the heart can't pump blood to the rest of the body, including the brain.

CPR uses chest compressions to mimic how the heart pumps, and these compressions help keep blood flowing throughout the body, according to the CDC. It can help save a person's life if breathing or the heart stops.

“The dispatcher was amazing helping me through it,” Saiz said of the CPR instructions she received. “My friend Sarah was really heroic in doing the chest compressions.”

But Bularzik was getting tired. Saiz hollered at Horne and Parks — two men playing basketball near by — to help them. Horne took over the chest compressions until the emergency crew arrived.

“I couldn’t tell you how long it was, but it felt like a really long time,” Horne said. “You don’t expect to run into a situation like that … it’s kind of jarring.”

“We really didn’t know if the guy had a pulse or what,” Parks said. “It was tough to know if he was going to make it.”

Bularzik said she’s spent time with the man and his family since the July 29 incident, which was “meaningful” for her.

“I think this was an example, from the start, where everybody did the right thing (and it) led to a great outcome,” said Newport Fire Deputy Chief Jared Minick.

To find a CPR course near you, visit the American Heart Association website.