Emergency responders including two sheriff’s deputies are being credited with saving the life of a man who crashed his car in Oceano while having a medical emergency.
According to Sheriff’s spokesman, Tony Cipolla, at about 1:20 p.m., Monday, June 4, dispatch got a 9-1-1 call of an explosion heard and a vehicle possibly on fire in the 1900 block of Ocean St., Oceano.
“Deputies, fire and ambulance were dispatched to the scene,” Cipolla said in a news release. “Deputies from the Sheriff’s South Station in Oceano arrived within minutes of the initial call. They discovered a 69-year-old man was unconscious in a vehicle that appeared to have struck a parked car.”
Cipolla said they believe the man was having a medical emergency and that’s why he crashed. He was not breathing and had a faint pulse when deputies pulled him from the wreck and started to administer CPR.
The Five-Cities Fire Department and San Luis Ambulance soon arrived and took over CPR.
“After about 10-15 minutes of CPR and the use of a defibrillator,” Cipolla said, “paramedics located a pulse and observed the man breathing on his own, however shallow. The victim was transported to a local hospital for further treatment where he is said to be in stable condition.”
Cipolla credited the swift action of responders for saving the man’s life. “If not for the quick action of Sheriff’s personnel, San Luis Ambulance and
Five-Cities Fire, the victim may not have survived the event,” he said.
The man’s name was not released by the Sheriff’s Department, as he’s not under arrest and to safeguard his medical privacy.
