Specialty: Cardiology and Cardiothoracic Surgery

Guy Monseair

Guy’s heart stopped twice. Back coaching days later.

On a summer afternoon, while training one of his athletes at the local gym, rowing coach Guy Monseair’s heart stopped.
And then—stopped again.

This was a race to save Guy’s life.

When the 53-year-old City Island rowing coach collapsed to the floor, gym patrons sprang into action. For minutes they performed CPR and, when that didn’t work, used a defibrillator to shock Guy’s heart twice. Still, no pulse. Responding police officers delivered two more shocks before Guy was brought back to life—briefly.

But less than a minute after regaining consciousness, he went into cardiac arrest for a second time. By now, EMTs had arrived and were able to restart Guy’s heart with two additional shocks, before racing the critically ill coach to a nearby hospital to save his life.

He was put in the care of Dr. Robert Michler, Surgeon-in-Chief and Chair, Surgery and Cardiothoracic & Vascular Surgery.

“Fortunately, he was able to immediately be transported to the Montefiore Einstein New Rochelle Hospital, where they then gave him immediate life-sustaining treatment. He then was transported to our Jack D. Weiler hospital, and that's where I saw him within hours of his cardiac arrest.”

Dr. Robert E. Michler

Guy was at risk for another sudden cardiac event, so there was no time to wait.

“We had an immediate critical decision to make in the race to save Guy’s life. We decided to proceed with emergent quadruple coronary artery bypass surgery despite Guy’s swollen and weak heart resulting from his acute heart attack and cardiac arrest. There are very few health systems in the country with the knowledge base and the skill that we have at Montefiore Einstein for managing these kinds of complex life-threatening conditions.”

-Robert E. Michler, MD

“It wasn’t just my life they saved. I have a team of 47 spectacular girls. The thought that I would not get back to them was unacceptable.”

“The system that saved Guy’s life worked exactly as it was designed to work. It was efficient, it was rapid, it was premier.”

-Robert E. Michler, MD

The next day, Guy bravely pushed through his recovery, determined to get back to his rowing team as soon as possible.

“Dr. Michler said ‘I'm gonna have you back in that coaching launch in 10 days.’ And when that was reported back to our board and parents it was like, that's never gonna happen. This is open heart surgery. But sure enough, 10 days later, I was back.”

“I technically died, and here I am. I could not have been in better hands. I'm incredibly lucky that I was taken to Montefiore Einstein.”

But for Montefiore Einstein, “luck” had nothing to do with it.

“There is no treatment offered anywhere in the world that we haven't either pioneered or been part of developing, thinking through, creating and applying to the betterment of mankind.”

-Robert E. Michler, MD