Merryl Hoffman knew she was taking good care of her heart. The 63-year-old attorney didn’t smoke or drink, and she was an avid hiker who used to run marathons and other distance races. In her 40s, she had been diagnosed with a leaky mitral valve and underwent surgery to repair it. Every year since, she has seen a cardiologist to check her heart and its function. The reports always came back clear.
When Hoffman left her apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side on Oct. 23, 2024, her heart was the last thing on her mind. She was saddled with her work bag and purse, hightailing it to the subway station so she could make it to work on time. That’s when her memory of the day ends.
Shortly into her walk, Hoffman experienced a sudden cardiac arrest. Her heart stopped beating. She collapsed to the ground. Doctors later told her it was a severe arrhythmia that could have been fatal — if not for where Hoffman fell.
Hoffman had collapsed outside Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s Breast and Imaging Center, about two and a half blocks from her subway station. A patient care technician and a passing runner immediately rushed to her aid. Then, Memorial Sloan Kettering nurses Sabrina Castle and Gianna Formisano stumbled upon the scene while walking to work.
“We were so shocked. When we were walking up, people were like ‘Nurses, nurses!’ We didn’t know what we were walking into,” Formisano said. “People were grabbing our coffee, taking our bags. It was out of a movie, the way that they were like ‘Oh, thank God you’re here.'”
Memorial Sloan Kettering 
“They absolutely saved my life”
Formisano and Castle took over performing CPR, keeping Hoffman’s heart manually beating. She didn’t have a pulse, and she had hit her head when she collapsed. The nurses also instructed one of the other bystanders to call an ambulance.
Early CPR increases survival for patients in cardiac arrest by “at least two or three fold,” said Dr. Jessica Hennessey, a cardiologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Early CPR means that blood flow to the brain and heart continues, preserving the health of those organs. Bystanders in a medical emergency should call 911 and immediately start CPR, Hennessey advised. CPR can be done with mouth-to-mouth or with just chest compressions, Hennessey said.
After five minutes that “felt like forever,” the ambulance arrived, Formisano said. Castle and Formisano helped the EMTs load Hoffman into the ambulance. Then, she was taken to NewYork-Presbyterian’s cardiac care unit for further treatment.
For the small crowd, the day carried on. Castle and Formisano headed to work. After a few hours, they called NewYork-Presbyterian to see if they could find out more about Hoffman’s status. They went to the hospital and spoke to a nurse there.
“She was like, ‘You got her back. She’s intubated, she’s alive, you saved her life,'” Castle recalled.
Hoffman was still unconscious. She told CBS News that she didn’t wake up until five days after the collapse. Her family told her that she had been rushed into surgery. Doctors told her that her heart had stopped for several minutes — and the actions of Castle, Formisano and other bystanders had saved her.
“Without them, I was told, there was no doubt I would have died or been brain dead,” Hoffman said. “They absolutely saved my life.”
Hoffman had an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator placed in her chest to prevent further cardiac arrests. The device shocks the heart if it detects an irregular heartbeat. She also began cardiac rehabilitation. Shortly after, she returned to work. Life began to get back to normal but one question was constantly at the back of her mind: Who had helped save her?
A chance reunion
While in cardiac rehabilitation, Hoffman found herself telling the story of the strangers who had helped her. A physiologist there overheard her talking about it and thought the story sounded familiar. His girlfriend was friends with two nurses who had helped a woman matching Hoffman’s description. After some back and forth, the physiologist connected Hoffman with Castle and Formisano.
The trio immediately made plans to get dinner. Hoffman’s husband joined them for the meal. There, the nurses were able to fill in the gaps of the October morning when Hoffman collapsed.
Sabrina Castle and Gianna Formisano 
“It was very jarring, when they gave my husband and I the blow-by-blow of that morning. There were things we did not know,” Hoffman said. “It was pretty incredible.”
Since that dinner, the women have stayed in touch. Recently, Castle and Formisano even passed Hoffman on the same block where she had collapsed. The three took a photo at the site.
“We were like, ‘Wow, this is really crazy,'” Formisano said. “‘We’re running into you on the same spot, on your way to work, on our way to work, but now you’re alive and well and in a much different state than when we met you the first time.'”
