Visitors help revive man who collapsed at war memorial

A man collapsed and went into cardiac arrest Saturday at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, but by good luck and determined effort he was revived, according to authorities and a witness.

"It was very unusual," said Sgt. David Schlosser, a spokesman for the U.S. Park Police.

It was an "amazing event," said James Tansey, a prosecutor in Union County, N.J. Tansey was one of four bystanders who aided the man when he collapsed about 12:10 p.m.

"The guy was gone," said Tansey. "No heartbeat, no pulse" and not breathing, he said. But out of the hundreds of visitors at the memorial, Tansey said, two paramedics and a doctor joined in trying to help the man.

According to Tansey, the doctor performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Schlosser said CPR was done for about four minutes before National Park Service rangers arrived with an automated external defibrillator, which restarted the man's heart.

Although the odds of finding someone willing and able to perform CPR in such a situation are "not high," Schlosser said, the man was "apparently relatively stable" when taken to a hospital.