There are still Good Samaritans in NYC — and two who saved a man’s life in Central Park reunited with him for Christmas
It’s a Christmas miracle.
When 77-year-old Upper West Sider Carney Mimms collapsed during a morning run near Central Park’s Strawberry Fields last month, two good Samaritans swooped in to assist with CPR, performing chest compressions that helped saved his life before Lenox Hill EMTs arrived.
Now, Mimms has tracked down and been reunited with the guardian angels — both doctors, both named Flavia — who helped him.
“The whole thing is miraculous in so many ways,” Mimms, a retired IT professional and Army vet told The Post of celebrating with Dr. Flavia Golden, 59, and Dr. Flavia Fioretti, 42, at Golden’s Upper West Side home last week.
It was around 8:30 a.m. on Nov. 19 when Mimms, who typically runs up to 2.5 miles five days a week, went unconscious and fell to the ground in the park.
“I hadn’t had any unusual symptoms or distress,” Mimms said. “Then I collapsed and stopped breathing.”
Golden, an internist with a private practice on the Upper East Side, was on the phone when she spotted Mimms face down on the ground.
“I ran over there and assessed him,” Golden told The Post of finding Mimms, whose face was bleeding from the fall. She notes that she was up earlier than usual because of jet lag after a trip to Alaska.
“He stopped breathing and I flipped him over and felt for a pulse. I started with chest compressions,” Golden recalled.
At the same time, Fioretti, a pediatrician who also lives on the Upper West Side, was taking her son to school when she saw the scene.
“He had no pulse — he had technically passed,” Fioretti told The Post.
While another helpful passerby, 29-year-old Alexa Lopez called 911, Fioretti and Golden took turns doing chest compressions on Mimms for close to 10 minutes. “It’s very hard to sustain CPR for that long. We alternated until the ambulance arrived.”
A team of Northwell Lenox Hill EMTs and paramedics arrived to find Mimms in cardiac arrest, pulseless and not breathing.
He did not have any ID at the time, just a New York Sports Club fob, so Fioretti and Golden had no way of alerting his family or knowing his name before he was rushed to Lenox Hill Hospital on the Upper East Side.
There, after failed shocks from a defibrillator, the staff administered life-saving drugs and continued CPR, ultimately reviving Mimms’ heart.
Dr. Perry Fisher, an interventional cardiologist, opened Carney’s arteries with a stent and intra-aortic balloon pump, restoring blood flow.
Dr. Brandon Godbout, vice chair of the emergency department at Lenox Hill, credited fast-acting passersby for helping save Mimms’ life with immediate CPR.
“His heart has recovered almost entirely to his pre-cardiac arrest state,” Godbout said.
Mimms’ last memory was completing his run before he went into cardiac arrest.
“People started telling me I had actually died. I’m still processing it,” Mimms said.
As a member of the Army reserves in the 1970s, he trained as a basic field medic and went on emergency runs responding to car and motorcycle accidents.
“You never knew what the stakes were going to be. I actually have performed CPR,” Mimms said. “In some ways, maybe I was meant to be on the other side of this.”
His partner, Ruth French, 79, said Mimms’ near-death experience has given them both a renewed lease on life.
“My bucket list is full. I said to Carney recently as we were taking down the compost, ‘This is what I would miss if you were not here. I would miss taking out the compost with you,'” she said. “Literally just seeing him in the morning.”
Golden,too, had called nearly every hospital in New York trying to locate Mimms and return a hat he had left behind. Eventually, Lenox Hill connected her with Mimms, who was also trying to find the women who helped save him.
“I was so grateful,” Mimms said.
Last week, Mimms and French joined Golden and Fioretti’s families for a celebration.
“It was very touching and loving,” Fioretti told The Post. “We’re all thankful to be together.”
Said Mimms: “Everybody did the right thing at the right time. I feel blessed for the life that I have.”
