A bizarre coincidence played out at the Kensington MARTA station on a recent Tuesday morning.
At 8:48 a.m. on April 17, officers with the transit authority got word that a man was in cardiac arrest. He was unconscious.
The cops — Officer K. Softley, Corporal M. Woodward, Officer in Training B. Dennis and Sgt. L. Martin — retrieved a defibrillator. The devices had been supplied to all MARTA stations in 2009.
The officers used the defibrillator and CPR on the man, police said. He soon came to and was taken to a local hospital.
Barely an hour later, the same officers got word that another man was in cardiac arrest in the bus area of the station. Softley and Woodward once again used the defibrillator and CPR, and the man was transported to the hospital.
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Later, police learned that the first heart attack victim had had another episode at the hospital and died. The second man lived, and remains in stable condition, police said Monday.
In spite of the first man’s fate, MARTA Police Chief Wanda Dunham saw the incidents as evidence that the authority had done the right thing in supplying all 38 stations with defibrillators and training all officers in CPR.
“The fact that there were two separate cardiac arrests at the same station just an hour apart is rather remarkable,” she said. “I’m proud of the way the officers responded.”
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