Court Clerk’s Moonlighting Is a Life-Saver for a Judge

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The New York Sun

A retired judge might have died yesterday if it weren’t for a quick-thinking court clerk who happens to moonlight as a paramedic.

At about 10:15 a.m., Judge Bertram Katz, who retired on May 31 after a 24-year career as a judge at state Supreme Court in the Bronx, collapsed in his courtroom, the clerk, John McConnell, said.

“A co-worker said he was speaking one minute, then sort of gasped, and slumped,” he said.

Mr. McConnell, 46, was summoned by another court officer and they rushed to the fifth-floor courtroom, where they found Judge Katz looking “slightly blue,” with a “weak, rapid pulse,” he said. His training leading him to spring into action, Mr. McConnell moved the judge onto a couch to examine him further.

Judge Katz’s pulse had stopped before the ambulance arrived, and so Mr. McConnell began administering CPR and preparing a defibrillator. He then shocked the judge once with the device, and with a little more CPR was able to get his pulse going again. An ambulance then took Judge Katz to Lincoln Hospital, where he was listed in critical but stable condition yesterday, fire department officials said.

A spokesman for the New York State Court System, David Bookstaver, said Judge Katz had returned to the Bronx court to work as a judicial hearing officer on a temporary basis.

Mr. McConnell said he works 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. as a senior court clerk five days a week, and then four or five nights a week works from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. as a paramedic.

A fire department official, Lieutenant James Rawcliffe, 37, said: “I think it’s a fine example of why having someone trained in CPR and first aid in all public buildings is a good idea.”


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