Man meets Logan Airport employees who saved his life

BOSTON (WHDH) -- A Vermont man got a chance to give two Logan Airport employees a heartfelt thank you. The man went into cardiac arrest in Terminal A sending those employees into action.

Doug Hale and his wife Tammi went to meet the Logan Airport workers who helped save Doug’s life.

“I saw a light, I felt warmth and it’s thanks to these people who let me come back, so they’re the angels, they’re my heroes,” said Doug Hale, the man that survived a heart attack.

The 48-year-old computer programmer from Rutland Vermont was on a moving sidewalk between connecting planes when he knew something felt wrong. Doug and his wife thought he was having a seizure, which he’d had before, but then she realized it was something more.

TSA workers James Flammia and Richard Page jumped in to help. Along with a fellow passenger who was an off-duty police officer or firefighter, they realized Doug was having a heart attack.

“The passenger started doing chest compressions, I was keeping his airway open by tilting his head back, at that time Rich Page came down and assisted me keeping the man’s airway open,” said James Flammia, a TSA worker.

Page yelled to a Delta worker to grab one of the new automated defibrillators installed at the airport, and used it to help bring Doug back before EMS workers took over and got Doug to the hospital.

“The only time I got any kind of relief was like a week later when they told us that he lived, there was like ten tons taken off my back and I could walk around breathing normal and live a happy life again,” said Richard Page, a TSA worker.

Logan officials said their new automated defibrillators have given them a 75 percent save rate.

“Like I said before, Logan Airport is a good place to die because it’s your best chance of recovery,” said Tammi Hale, Doug Hale’s wife.

The TSA workers insisted they were not heroes but Doug Hale insisted they were something even better.

“I think they’re angels,” said Hale.

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