NEW YORK CITY – What started out as a typical day for Abraham Puthota turned into anything but that.
On Dec. 6th, the engineer was at the end of his morning commute from his home in Harriman, New York to Penn Station when he boarded a Queens-bound E-train.
“I was playing a game on my phone and that’s the last thing I remember,” Puthota told WPIX.
The 64-year-old slipped into cardiac arrest and collapsed in a nearly packed subway car.
Fortunately, five of his fellow straphangers quickly jumped into action where they performed CPR on Puthota for nearly 27 minutes until EMS arrived.
“They revived me essentially,” he said. “They are guardian angels to me, if it wasn’t for those people I [would] not be here today.
Six weeks after the incident, his family is still in disbelief, amazed by not only the kindness of strangers but their timing.
“The doctor said even if he was on the bed sleeping and if it had happened he wouldn’t be here today – we are so lucky that he was in the right place at the right time,” Abraham’s wife Vimala told WPIX.
As his doctors still try to determine what sparked Puthota’s cardiac episode, he is well aware that he’s been given a second lease on life.
He’s now on a mission to find those guardian angels.
“There are really good people out there – people who are concerned with strangers like me and hopefully one day I could reciprocate that.”