A Toronto man is thanking the efforts of a Good Samaritan who came to his aid following a heart attack, while he says many others ignored his pleas to call emergency services.
The actions of the man who saved his life have recently spread like wildfire across social media platforms, serving as a reminder that small acts of kindness take very little effort, and they can be matters of life or death.
Brijesh Patel was in the middle of a workout a few weeks ago at his gym in Liberty Village when he began to feel off.
Leaving with chest tightness, he knew he shouldn’t go home where he lives alone. “The chest pain was getting worse, I was sweating a lot, and then my right hand started feeling numb, tingling,” Patel said to Global News.
In the moment, he says he knew he was having a heart attack.
Sitting on a bench in front of a restaurant, Patel began asking people if they could call him an ambulance. But despite being close enough to people he could touch them, no one was responding to his calls for help.
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Finally, a man responded, telling him that his phone was dead. That’s when Patel realized he was holding his own phone, but in his disoriented state, he didn’t know where he was.
Patel says the man ran into a nearby Pi Co. after calling 911, to ask for their address. Shortly after, he came out to wait with Patel for the ambulance.
“I remember him specifically saying, ‘Hang in there brother, I can hear their sirens, they’re close,’ which was very assuring,” he said.
But as the paramedics began taking him away, he realized he didn’t know his hero’s identity.
“I did not get his name at that moment at all,” he said. “When they were putting me on a stretcher, I wanted to say, ‘stop the guy,’ but the words didn’t come out.”
Patel said he asked his friend to go to the restaurant and ask them to review their security cameras for when the Good Samaritan came in.
They released a still image of the man while Patel was recovering in hospital to clear a blocked artery.
During this time, his sister, Sejal, put together a social media video asking people to help identify their hero. It worked.
But Sejal said the man wanted to remain anonymous. “When we were trying to thank him, he said, ‘I don’t think I did anything special. Please don’t give me more accolades than I need, I’m just doing what’s normal, I’m doing what’s human,’” she recounted.
Still, she managed to put her brother in touch with his mystery man thanks to a flood of people on social media who started looking for him following her plea. “He was like, ‘I don’t need anything.’ Well, I’m like, ‘I need to buy you a beer,” said Patel.
The man who came to his aid may not have wanted their thanks, but Patel said it’s important for him to receive his family’s gratitude.
As for the people who ignored him, Patel said he holds no ill will towards them, but he’s encouraging them to follow the lead of the man who did “what’s human.”
“Sometimes maybe just slow down so you can help the opportunity to help someone,” he said, adding, “it costs nothing to dial 9-1-1.”
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