Montreal family meets Good Samaritans who delivered life-saving CPR

Gloria Borrelli and her mother Francesca choked back tears as they took turns hugging and kissing Mikhael Esterez on the cheek, repeating the words "thank you" over and over again outside Montreal's Sacré-Coeur hospital. 

After more than a week of searching for the Good Samaritans who delivered life-saving CPR to Gloria's dad, 87-year-old Sabato Borrelli, the mother and daughter finally met Esterez and another woman who played a key role that day, but who wanted to keep her identity private. Borrelli had collapsed after going into cardiac arrest while out on his daily walk on May 15 near Jarry Park.

"You guys are superheroes for us," Gloria told them. 

On Monday, the two strangers met Borrelli inside his hospital room where he continues to recover from the ordeal. He managed to wave and say thank you "many times," he said.

Esterez reached out to CBC after reading about Borrelli 's recovery and the family's search for the Good Samaritan who saved him. But he insisted CBC also find the woman at the scene who was the first to call 911 and begin compressions that day.

"I'm super happy that they have more time with somebody that's important to them," he said. "We all have people we care for and sometimes we kind of wish we could have more time with them."

Borrelli turned 87 the day he awoke at the hospital on May 17. Coincidentally, that same day, Esterez turned 35, wondering what had become of the man he helped a couple days prior.

He had pulled into the parking lot of his daughter's daycare around 3 p.m. when he saw Borrelli lying on the ground, a woman on the phone near him. The 911 operator asked if there were any defibrillators nearby. Esterez went into the daycare hoping to find one but there was none.

By that point, the woman had already started giving Borrelli chest compressions to the pace set by the 911 operator over the phone. Feeling some strain in her wrists, she let Esterez take over after a few minutes.

"He has these very intense blue eyes and I remember looking down on him while doing the compressions and he was staring at me so I really hoped I would see him like I did today, alive with life in his eyes because I feared they would kind of haunt me for a little while," he said.

Esterez kept going until a first paramedic arrived in an SUV equipped with a defibrillator at 3:15 p.m., according to Urgences-santé's log.

The paramedic shocked Borrelli and asked a second unidentified man to take over chest compressions for a bit, said Esterez. Five minutes later, at 3:20 p.m., the ambulance arrived and Borrelli was rushed to hospital.

"You're just left there and you don't know if you did good or if the person is still alive," said Esterez.

Urgences-santé spokesperson Jean-Pierre Rouleau says they were receiving a high volume of calls that day, which is why the ambulance took as long as it did. The original dispatch was received at 3:02 p.m.

Over the last 30 days, Urgences-santé's ambulances have arrived at the scene of a high-priority call within 8 minutes and 50 seconds, says Rouleau.

"There's days, unfortunately, when the demand exceeds supply and, well, it's more difficult to respond as quickly as we would like," he said. "We would always like to have more resources but it's linked to budgets."

Esterez noted that 18 minutes was a long time, thinking that traffic had something to do with the delay.

For him, the lessons of that day are pretty clear:

"People should learn CPR and get out of the way [for] the ambulance," he said.