When Robert J. (R.J.) Capozzola, a paid paramedic with East Hampton Village, helped save a woman who was choking on a piece of steak at the Palm restaurant on Aug. 7, he said he wasn’t thinking about much, just doing his job.
“For me this is the family business. My uncle has been an E.M.T. for 35 years. My father was an E.M.T. and a firefighter. I’ve been around beepers and emergencies since I was in diapers,” he said in a phone call.
Mr. Capozzola became an E.M.T. in 2019, before becoming a paramedic in 2021. “I’ve had to do this a handful of times,” he said, when asked if he had previously had to dislodge food from someone’s throat as he did for Virginia Morgan in August.
Ms. Morgan and her husband, Alfred, were eating dinner at the Palm when she began to choke. Within a minute of the 911 call, responders were dispatched to the restaurant, according to Gerry Turza, the village’s fire and emergency services administrator.
Village Police Officer Christopher Jack was first in the building and “quickly located Mrs. Morgan and confirmed she was not breathing,” Mr. Turza said. “With the aid of an unidentified individual, they moved her to the front walkway of the restaurant.” Three other village officers — Brandon Esposito, Steven Niggles, and Sgt. Steven Sheades — worked on Ms. Morgan, who had no pulse, administering CPR, hooking her up to an automatic external defibrillator, and beginning rescue breathing.
Mr. Capozzola assessed her airway and noticed the steak caught in her throat. While he wasn’t able to remove it completely, he was able to dislodge it to allow Ms. Morgan to begin breathing again. By the time she was loaded into the ambulance, she had regained consciousness.
“Their actions no doubt saved a life,” Mr. Turza told the village board on Friday as he presented Mr. Capozzola and the officers with plaques commending their role in the save.
“As soon as I got in the ambulance, I realized I could breathe and by the time I got to the hospital, I knew I was alive. Thank you for all you’ve done, otherwise I might not be here,” she told the responders, who sat in the audience at the board meeting. Her husband spoke afterward. “What’s remarkable, I heard people in the restaurant were watching from the windows. They all broke into applause when they heard someone say, ‘She’s breathing.’ It was a very close call,” he said.
“I don’t know who it was . . . but somebody pounded and pounded on my chest,” said Ms. Morgan, an octogenarian, who, for better or worse, was conscious for that.
“Well yes, that was necessary,” said Mr. Morgan. “The next day we felt obligated to go to church. I really wanted to interrupt church and point to Mary Mott” — Ms. Mott is the chief of the East Hampton Emergency Medical Service Department — “and say to everybody, ‘Do you see that lady in the yellow shirt? She saved my wife last night.’ “
Mr. Morgan told the board that a doctor at the hospital recommended they buy a “LifeVac” on Amazon. The LifeVac is a small suctioning device that can help dislodge material stuck in a victim’s throat. “You already have mandates that restaurants carry A.E.D.s for heart problems. I’d like to recommend you consider it obligatory for all restaurants to have the life vacuum.”
Marcos Baladron, the village administrator, said in a text that the village was speaking with its attorney to see if it could legally compel restaurants to carry the machines.
“I almost wish this was the end of the meeting so we could end on a high note,” said Christopher Minardi, the deputy mayor, who ran the meeting in the absence of Mayor Jerry Larsen, who was on vacation. “It puts everything in perspective.”