By Kristin Alexander
All of Angela Mirador’s training had led up to this life-or-death moment.
July 26, 2019 started like any other hot summer day. Mirador, a nurse at an assisted living facility, and her 2-year-old daughter were in the front yard of their home near Kitsap Lake in Bremerton when their neighbor, Jeremy McCrimmon, passed by during a routine run. He waved. Angela’s daughter brought him a leaf that had fallen off of a tree.
Suddenly, McCrimmon didn’t feel well.
“What I remember is getting a little dizzy and a little out of breath,” he recalled.
Moments before he had checked his smart watch and saw that his heart rate was 173 beats per minute, about as high as he’d ever seen it. He squatted and placed his elbows on his knees and his hands on his forehead.
“I looked at her, and that’s the last thing I remember.”
Jeremy fell backward and hit the sidewalk. Mirador said his eyes rolled backward and he started twitching. Although he felt no pain, he was in cardiac arrest that doctors would later discover resulted from three artery restrictions caused by a coronary disease.
Mirador called 911 and performed CPR.
“I’ve never done CPR on an actual human,” she said. Mirador soon discovered it was much more difficult than the manikins she had practiced on and uses to teach others.
Bremerton paramedics were tied up on other calls. The only available engine had to fight through downtown rush hour traffic.
“They said it took 12 minutes. The fire department is like three minutes from my house. I’m like, ‘Where are they?’ I’m getting tired and my knees are killing me because it’s on the concrete sidewalk,” said Mirador, who continued to single-handedly perform CPR while another neighbor prayed. “I just had to keep going because he’s my neighbor and I didn’t think he was going to make it. I had to be able to tell his wife that I did everything I could.”
When firefighters arrived, they used an automated external defibrillator and delivered three shocks to his heart. In an interview with the Kitsap Sun, McCrimmon described how during that brush with death he dreamed that he was playing baseball in a professional stadium.
Today, McCrimmon lives in Japan with his wife and three children. He runs three miles a few times each week and bikes six miles each way to and from his job at the U.S. Navy Ship Repair Facility. He describes that summer day as a “miracle.”
Mirador will receive a Certificate of Extraordinary Action from the Red Cross for her life-saving actions.
“Angela Mirador is an extraordinary woman,” McCrimmon said. “Quiet and calm but strong and perseverant. I praise God for her being there. Twenty-seven minutes of death will definitely change your perspective on life!”
Sign up for a Red Cross online or classroom CPR class here.
American Red Cross NW Region 