Carlye Waxman bartender at Gate House saved a customers life on Christmas Eve. (Josh Williams/DNAinfo)By Joshua Williams
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
LOWER MANHATTAN — Battery Park City residents are calling it their own Christmas miracle.
A local bartender saved a patron's life on Christmas Eve when she performed CPR after the customer collapsed on his bar stool.
Carlye Waxman, 27, was bartending at Gate House Restaurant and Bar, on South End Avenue, near Rector Street, when she said a patron came in on Christmas Eve and ordered a round of shots.
After downing the shots with friends, Waxman noticed that the patron, who was well over 6 feet tall and 250 pounds, suddenly looked ill.
She said she told him to sit in a stool and that's when he collapsed.
“His mouth turned blue and he looked dead, he wasn’t breathing at all,” she recalled.
Waxman ran into the office to call 911, and after seeing another patron refuse to perform CPR, she jumped in and helped.
With the direction of the 911 operator on the line, Waxman began CPR compressions with her hands.
“My hair is kind of long so it was a little awkward with the phone trapped in my shoulder and using my hands for compressions," she recalled.
After the twentieth compression, she said he let out a loud huff and started breathing.
The operator had her continue the compressions until the ambulance arrived.
The EMTs promptly told her, “You probably saved the man’s life.”
Waxman said she is now going to sign up for a CPR class. "It’s important and you never know when you are going to need it, the man could’ve died,” she said.
susyq | December 29, 2009