Friends Save Basketball Player After He Collapses On Court In South Brunswick

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, NJ — Like any other regular Wednesday night, on Aug. 9 nearly a dozen men gathered to play basketball at South Brunswick High School.

The over-40 men’s league was playing with a smaller crowd of players and after 45 minutes into the game, two players asked to sit out.

One of the players, a 48-year-old Princeton man named Javier (last name withheld for privacy), told a friend he wasn’t feeling well as he took a seat under the far basket.

While players continued to play at the other end of the court, Javier collapsed face down onto the court. His fellow basketball players immediately raced to his aid.

One of the players, Cheng “Rob” Lee, a volunteer fireman with the Kingston Fire Department, knew the group had to act quickly. Lee asked site supervisor Mike Dooley to call 911.

A second basketball player, Raj Vora, knew things were serious as they rolled Javier over and he began to turn purple. Vora described Javier as gasping for air with clenched teeth. He ran into the hallway to get the AED.

Another player, Freddy Schenk, who is an athletic trainer began administering CPR. As Schenck began chest compression, Lee gave mouth-to-mouth to Javier.

They applied the AED and it shocked Javier, but they still found no pulse. Lee and Schenck worked feverishly to try to get Javier’s pulse back.

Two minutes after the 911 call was placed, South Brunswick Officer Sean Nally who was nearby arrived at the high school. Nally found several players attending to Javier who was on his back and still did not have a pulse.

Nally stepped in to continue CPR and another shock was given by the AED. Within minutes the Monmouth Junction First Aid Squad arrived along with paramedics and lifesaving efforts continued.

After several minutes Javier regained a pulse. As they placed him in the ambulance, Javier became alert and began speaking with EMS asking what had happened.

Javier was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick where he continues to receive treatment.

“Thanks to the quick actions, training, and knowledge of my fellow players, police officers, and EMS, I get to continue my life and be a husband to my wife and a father to my daughter. I am eternally grateful for their critical life skills,” Javier said in a statement.

South Brunswick Police Chief Raymond Hayducka said the case highlighted the importance of everyone knowing CPR and having access to an AED.

“It was split second actions by the basketball players, Officer Nally and EMS that saved a father’s life,” Hayducka said.

“They only had minutes to act to make a difference. The fact that the South Brunswick School District has invested in AEDs at all the schools made a huge difference.”

Each year, 350,000 Americans experience an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and only around 10 percent survive, according to the National Institutes of Health. Studies show that if immediate CPR and defibrillation are applied within the first 3 minutes most of the victims can survive, yet each minute that goes by the chances drop significantly.

Those who want to learn CPR, contact Penn Medicine Princeton Health at 1-888-897-8979 or go to the American Heart Association website at https://cpr.heart.org/en/ for more information.

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