Two Chelsea Police officers praised for their efforts to save man’s life inside grocery store

CHELSEA, Mass. — Two Police Officers from Chelsea helped save a man’s life after he collapsed in the middle of a grocery store on Wednesday.

Officer’s Timothy McCarthy and Stephen Garcia stopped at the Market Basket in Chelsea to pick up lunch, when a woman ran up alerting them that a man had collapsed in another part of the store.

McCarthy and Garcia quickly ran over to the man who was gasping for air and started to turn purple. That’s when officer Garcia started CPR while officer McCarthy brought over an AED from the store.

They shocked the man twice and continued compressions until the Fire Department and EMTs arrived.

“We did CPR training last Friday so I was able to put it into practice and hopefully saved the guy’s life,” said officer Garcia.

The man who suffered the medical incident is a 65-year-old Chelsea resident. He remains in the hospital as of Thursday night.

“It feels like second nature when something serious comes along. You don’t think about it, you just act and kind of go through what you’ve been trained and it seems to fall into place. The teamwork we had that day was unbelievable. It just flows smoothly, it was awesome,” said officer McCarthy.

Both officers say they hope he pulls through and makes a full recovery.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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