A Long Island athletic director is being credited with saving a referee's life after he collapsed on the court during a Nassau County Class A final between Floral Park and West Hempstead at Farmingdale State College.
Wantagh AD Jennifer Keane was quick to act after referee Joe Gaskin collapsed.
“It was the coach at West Hempstead that said, ‘Joe, are you OK?’ ” Keane, 47, told The New York Post, recalling Gaskin’s initial faltering on the floor, which was later determined to be cardiac arrest.
Keane said Gaskin told her that he needed a minute, saying he couldn't catch his breath. Immediately after he fell to the ground.
Accompanied by three nurses and one doctor who were in attendance at the game, Keane was able to clear the West Hempstead away in order to attend to Gaskin.
“I could hear that he was struggling to breathe and started to turn blue,” she said of Gaskin, a 64-year-old Franklin Square grandfather of four. “The doctor was saying that he had a pulse, and then all of a sudden he said, ‘No pulse.’ “
Tiffany Vargas, a nurse who specializes in heart failure, began doing test compressions, and Keane ran to get the AED.
“I just kept saying, ‘Joe, stay with us.’ I just kept calling his name,” Keane recalled of the moments the ref was unconscious before being brought back with the AED.
Gaskin was then given oxygen before being rushed to a local hospital.
“Every second absolutely counted,” Vargas said. “I can’t stress enough how important a team effort of getting down there, immediately securing the situation, calling for EMS, calling the AED and immediately starting chest compressions was vital to saving his life.”
This wasn't Keane's first such incident. She had used an AED to revive a custodian at a high school where she worked 18 years ago.
