Doc, Paramedics Rescue Collapsed Runner

City paramedics rescued a 62-year-old man who collapsed Monday morning while running in the annual New Haven Road Race.

Rick Fontana, the city’s emergency operations chief, told the Independent that the man collapsed near the intersection of Temple Street and Grove Street only five minutes into the race.

His wife and son, who were running the race with him, were not with the man at the time and didn’t know that he had fallen.

New Haven Fire Department paramedic personnel who were assigned to the race responded and arrived within one minute, Fontana said. By the time they arrived, they found that a bystander had already begun CPR on the collapsed runner.

“They immediately shocked him into a normal rhythm and he became responsive while en route to YNHH,” Fontana said. ​“Thankfully these medics work the race as the results could have been much different if a station response was needed.”

The ​“bystander” was Yale New Haven Hospital doc Chris Erb.

Erb was running in the race with his friend Ian Christmann when they came upon the man who had collapsed. Erb ​“went straight for the man and, after not finding a pulse, began chest compressions for five minutes until paramedics arrived. He most likely saved the man’s life,” Christmann later reported on Facebook (where he also posted the above photo). ” I know he’s doing this all day long in the hospital, but amazing to see a hero in action.”