Crime & Safety

Simsbury Police Officer Helps Save a Life

Tracy Dunne is being hailed as a hero by the American Red Cross, for her work in saving a man's life. She urges all to get their CPR certification.

Simsbury Police Officer Tracy Dunne was off-duty when a man went into cardiac arrest at Airways Golf Course in West Suffield.

With the help of Hartford Fire Department Lieutenant Ewan Sheriff, also off-duty, and his friend, Hartford Fire Department Lieutenant Lionel Thompson, a life was saved.

Sheriff and Thompson just finished a round of golf and were putting their clubs in their car when they heard someone shouting from the course that a man had collapsed, according to the Connecticut and Rhode Island Region American Red Cross.

When they arrived at the scene, Dunne was already there, doing chest compressions on the man, whom Sheriff said was turning blue. Sheriff assisted with CPR and performed rescue breaths on the victim.

Only afterward would they find out from the man's wife that three days before, the man had a dream that two firemen saved his life.

A golf course attendant was summoned with an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) to shock the man's heart. The team continued to work with the man until emergency personnel arrived and transported him to the hospital, where he underwent a successful open heart surgery,

Dunne urged people to get their CPR certification and first aid training.

"I hope that I'm at the right place and the right time again because it was an incredible feeling to know that this man lived and I saved a life," she said in the Red Cross video.


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