Magda Lugo, 59, a resident of the Bayville section, was a passenger in her son’s car about 1:20 p.m. Wednesday when Patrolman John Sperber stopped the vehicle, said Detective Sgt. James J. Smith.
Lugo’s son, Eric Cappas, 38, of Farrelly Avenue, was driving on Forest Hills Parkway and was at Bill Zimmerman Jr. Way, when Sperber signaled him to pull over. Cappas jumped out and told the officer his mother “was having a heart attack,” Smith said.
Cappas and another person helped remove Lugo from the car and placed her on the ground while Sperber retrieved his automated external defibrillator — AED — from his patrol car, Smith said.
Detective Will Cullen, Sgt. David Britton and officers Richard Breitenbach and Don Rowley assisted at the scene. The officers performed cardio-pulmonary resuscitation on Lugo in between four shocks delivered from the AED before an emergency medical services crew arrived, Smith said.
Carol Sasso, an employee of the Ocean County Sheriff Department’s dispatch center, stopped at the scene to help and two Berkeley Township employees from the Public Works department also helped out, Smith said.
En route to Community Medical Center, medics shocked Lugo’s heart another four times, Smith said.
She received an emergency cardiac procedure at Community Medical Center in Toms River, and remained a patient there Friday.
