Grid-Goers Hear Heart Attack Rescue Over PA

Talk about a Hail Mary!

A veteran Brooklyn high school athletic director suffered a near-deadly heart attack while announcing a football game yesterday but was brought back to life by the team doctor as stunned spectators listened to the dramatic rescue over the PA system.

“Clear!” Dr. Ed Golembe shouted as he applied the pads of a defibrillator on Marshall Tames, the athletic director at Erasmus Hall HS, around 1 p.m. at Midwood High’s field.

The rescue was inadvertently broadcast over the PA system at the 2,000-seat stadium where Erasmus was in a playoff game with the Bronx’s Dewitt Clinton HS.

“As I was calling a play, I turned around and heard all this happen,” said Erasmus coach Danny Landberg. “I got flustered.”

Golembe, who is the medical director of the hyperbaric and wound healing center at Brookdale as well as the Erasmus team physician said Tames had no heartbeat and stopped breathing when he was shocked back to life.

Thames quickly revived and was rushed to Maimonides Hospital.

“They told me its a miracle,” Tames told The Post at the hospital. “It jolted me back.”

Defibrillators at every athletic event have been a PSAL requirement for at least five years and Golembe said the rule saved Tames life.

“I suspect he would not have made it without the electric shock device,” he said.

Chris Miccio, who was keeping time for the game and first began CPR when Tames collapsed, said officials and spectators were relieved when Thames responded so quickly.

“Somebody asked you what you did today. ‘Oh, I worked a scoreboard at a football game and saved somebody’s life,’ ” Miccio said.

Miccio said he was a student athlete at Midwood HS during Tames 18-year run as coach there.

“We were trying to keep him responsive after they brought him back [with the defibrillator],” he said. “He always used to bust our chops about owing him money for candy and stuff like that when we did fundraising. I said to him, ‘Do I still owe you that 11 bucks from my junior year of high school?’ And he said, ‘Yah, you still owe it to me.’ “

Thames retired from Midwood in 2001 and has been athletic director at Erasmus for the past six years.

“He makes this his life,” Landberg said. “He’s been around PSAL football since the 50s.”

At Maimonides, Tames said he barely remembers what happened, but recalled that hed been feeling pain in his back for two days and dismissed it as muscle strain.

Just before the game, Tames said he thought he had indigestion and laid down for a nap before coming to the game.

“It started hurting a little bit in my chest,” he said. “Right before the half, I don’t know what happened; someone said I keeled over. They put me on the floor, and the doctor from the field came up with a defibrillator and they used it on me.”

Thames said he expected to be at the hospital for a couple of days, but then that he wanted to get back to work.

“I don’t want Last Rites!” he said. “I want to go back to the office.”

“But I’m more upset that we lost the playoff than I am about the heart attack.”

Erasmus lost its playoff to Dewitt, 20-16.

Copyright © 2010 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.