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A grateful 16-year-old Brooklyn basketball player who suffered cardiac arrest during a game last year was reunited at an emotional ceremony Wednesday with the FDNY heroes who saved his life.
“Without them, I wouldn’t be here right now, talking to you guys. I’d be somewhere in a place, probably in the sky,” Jack McMurrer, of Bensonhurst, said at the FDNY’s 30th annual “Second Chance” event.
McMurrer, New Utrecht High, was on the bench in March 2025, when he suddenly collapsed, stunning his teammates.
“I don’t remember any of it. I remember waking up in the hospital and seeing my mom next to me and just wondering, like, where did this all go wrong?” McMurrer said.
EMS workers rushed to the game and quickly began chest compressions, then shocked his heart back into beating regularly.
McMurrer, who was suffering from a “v-fib arrest,” later got an emergency surgery, now uses a defibrillator, and is still playing basketball, he said.
“You guys saved my life. Without you guys coming in that day, coming in clutch, I wouldn’t be here right now,” he said, while thanking members of FDNY Engine Company 279.
His father, Tom McMurrer, said he was blown away by the paramedics’ coolheadedness.
“I was amazed at how calm they were. A great team works together, like, the Knicks last night, right? That’s how they worked,” he said.”They saved my son’s life.”
He added that he was grateful for a nurse and doctor at the game, who performed chest compressions until EMS workers arrived.
Paramedic Sam Andrews, part of the team that saved McMurrer, was thrilled to later learn the boy was fine.
“This was one of the most special jobs I’ve ever done—that we’ve ever done,” Adams said.
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“This is why we do all of this. It’s a second chance, a second chance for him,” said firefighter Kendall Williams, who also helped rescessitate McMurrer.
Six other victims of serious heart trouble were also reunited with their FDNY heroes at the event at Nicotra’s Ballroom on Staten Island Wednesday.
Other victims included a jogger who had a heart attack on the West Side Highway and an off-duty cop who suffered cardiac arrest while spending an afternoon with his son.
