ROCKAWAY BEACH \u2014 A woman who suffered a near-fatal heart attack in St. Camillus Church during Palm Sunday Mass enjoyed a heartfelt reunion three months after the emergency with the men who helped save her life.<\/p>\n
Dorothy Dugandzic, who has been recuperating at home from her March 29 ordeal, returned to St. Camillus Church in Rockaway Beach on June 26 to meet church organist James McCabe and firefighter Peter Haggerty and talk about the incident.<\/p>\n
Dugandzic\u2019s life was saved because McCabe and Haggerty used an automated external defibrillator (AED) to revive her after her heart stopped. Now, she said, she is sharing her story to raise awareness of the importance of having AEDs in churches.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think every building should have one,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
RELATED: Following Outpouring of Support, St. Camillus to Remain Open<\/a><\/p>\n Dugandzic has no memory of her medical emergency because she lost consciousness and didn\u2019t wake up until she was in the hospital.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t remember coming in here. I don\u2019t remember sitting down. I don\u2019t remember being worked on,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, I\u2019ve been looking for answers.\u201d<\/p>\n During the reunion, Dugandzic was told about the heroics of McCabe and Haggerty after she collapsed in her church pew and fell to the floor just as the opening procession for Palm Sunday Mass was underway.<\/p>\n The two men said they felt the hand of God in the events that unfolded that day, especially since neither was supposed to be at St. Camillus Church.<\/p>\n McCabe, who is an organist for several churches, was not scheduled to be behind the keyboard at St. Camillus Church on Palm Sunday. And Haggerty, who is a parishioner at St. Francis de Sales Church, would normally not be at St. Camillus Church, but attended that day because he was accompanying his parents to Palm Sunday Mass.<\/p>\n In addition, McCabe, who ran out to his car to grab the AED, wasn\u2019t even supposed to have the device. The Catholic Youth Organization<\/a> (CYO) coach noted that having an AED on hand is part of his job when coaching kids, but he was supposed to return it to the CYO at the end of the season and had not yet done so.<\/p>\n Add to that the fact that St. Camillus Church had been slated to close in December 2025 but was given a reprieve by the Diocese of Brooklyn and allowed to remain open.<\/p>\n \u201cI keep replaying the chain of events and the divine intervention that took place because it\u2019s just unbelievable, McCabe said. \u201cThere are so many things that had to line up.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody was very lucky that day,\u201d Haggerty added.<\/p>\n Because Dugandzic has no memory of what happened to her, she had McCabe and Haggerty fill her in during their reunion.<\/p>\n Haggerty recalled that the church was crowded that morning and that he was standing in the back when he realized that there was a commotion on the left side of the church.<\/p>\n