EMTs Save Lives Every Day; Jersey Shore Man Wants You To Know How Much It Matters

BRICK, NJ — In the corner of Brian Mirsky's bedroom lies a crumpled-up shirt.

"It's the shirt they cut off me," Brian Mirsky said. "Wendy brought it upstairs and tossed it on the side of my bed. It's lying on the floor where she tossed it."

Wendy, his wife, tossed the shirt aside after Brian was rushed to the emergency room following a cardiac event five years ago.

It took Brick Township emergency medical technicians 10 minutes of CPR to restore his heartbeat.

Five years later, he is back to doing the things in life that bring him joy.

"I was clinically deceased," said Brian, who turns 55 on Nov. 18. "I've been able to watch both girls graduate high school because one guy said I'm not leaving until he's awake again."

In honor of the fifth anniversary of being brought back to life, Brian has spent the week trying to make sure Brick Township's EMTs know how grateful he is for what they did to save his life. That included having food delivered to the EMTs on Monday and delivering cupcakes to them on Friday, the anniversary of his life being saved.

"These guys get paid too little to drive around and buy their own food," he said. "I just want them to get recognition for what they do."

10 minutes

Brian Mirsky says Nov. 13, 2021, was a normal Saturday. He was raking leaves and working on putting up lights on his family's home for his annual Christmas light display.

"I remember at some point coming into the living room saying something's not right," he said.

Four-and-a-half days later he woke up in the hospital, he said.

He has no memory of what happened in between.

Andrew Bloomer, who has been an EMT for more than 10 years, was at Brick Township's EMS station on the north side of town, at Lanes Mill and Burnt Tavern roads.

When Brick's dispatcher relayed the information from Wendy Mirsky's 911 call, Bloomer knew exactly where to go.

"I grew up in that neighborhood," Bloomer, 38, said in an interview with Patch. As he drove the ambulance to the Mirskys' home, he and his partner knew they were facing a critical situation: "Unresponsive male, unknown if breathing."

Brian was lying on the living room floor, blue and not breathing, as his terrified wife and daughters stood nearby.

Brian said a now-retired Brick Township patrol officer, Joe Farnkopf, lives across the street from his home. Farnkopf's son was on duty and heard the EMS call with Brian's address and called his dad, who also went over to help.

As Farnkopf tried to comfort Wendy and their daughters, Bloomer and his partner, along with Ryan Trapp, one of Brick's EMS supervisors, got to work trying to restore Brian's heartbeat.

They started CPR and hooked up an automated external defibrillator to shock Brian's heart. As they tried to put in an airway to administer oxygen, Brian was fighting them, Bloomer said.

"It’s a good sign the body is trying to do what it’s supposed to do," Bloomer said.

It took 10 minutes with four shocks and five rounds of CPR to restart Brian's heart, he said.

"As the paramedics were walking in he had a return of spontaneous circulation," Bloomer said, meaning Brian's heart was beating on its own. The paramedics hooked him up to a heart monitor and rushed him to the hospital.

"His heart was beating on its own as we left," Bloomer said.

'Every call is unplanned'

Brick Township launched its paid Emergency Medical Services in May 2006, a response to growing needs for EMS services that were outstripping the ability of the town's volunteer first aid squads to respond.

In the 20 years since, the squad has answered nearly 200,000 calls for service, covering everything from people reporting generalized weakness to life-threatening situations.

In 2025, the EMS service answered 11,713 calls for service, said James Riccio, the township's former police chief who now is the director of Brick Township's EMS services. As of Nov. 3, there had been 9,911 calls in 2026, Riccio said.

That's an average of 32 calls every day to assist someone in a medical crisis. To meet those needs, the township employs 35 full-time EMTs and 23 part-timers, along with seven seasonal EMTs during the summer, he said.

The calls require the EMTs to evaluate the crisis and respond — something Brian Mirsky said he admires greatly.

"My job is about 70 percent proactive and 30 percent reactive," he said. He owns Veranda Technologies, which provides hardware and software information technology support to small and mid-size businesses. That means providing support in a crisis, such as the complications created Thursday when Microsoft's Outlook service crashed.

It's a very different crisis than what EMTs face, Brian said.

"One hundred percent of their job is reacting to what happens," he said. "They sit in the rig and wait for the radio to go off. Every call is unplanned."

Every call means walking into a situation where they don't know exactly what they are facing — just that someone needs their help.

On Nov. 13, 2021, when Brian Mirsky's heart stopped, Bloomer and Trapp did not know that Brian's cardiac issue had a neurological cause. All they knew was they needed to get his heart restarted and that every second counted.

"In my particular event, they didn't know I was having an electrical issue," Brian said. He learned later that his particular kind of sudden cardiac arrest has a 10 percent survival rate.

"I'm pretty unemotional," Brian said. "I don't get worked up over stuff."

But at the same time, as the fifth anniversary of his rebirth approached Brian wanted to make sure people understood how life-changing it is to have the EMTs.

"People should just have an appreciation for what they do," he said. "They don't get thanked nearly enough."

"Brick EMS personnel do an outstanding job each and every day," said Riccio, who returned to head the division after retiring as police chief. "They are some of the most dedicated and professional individuals that I have had the privilege of working with. I am proud of the work that they do and the community can count on the fact that our EMS will always be there in their time of need."

"They're out there doing this for someone else today," Brian said. "Andrew happened to be in the rig that day but it’s everyone who made the difference and makes a difference in other people's lives."

A time for thanks

Brian Mirsky said he is not a religious person, but having a second chance at life has brought some changes.

He lives with an implanted pacemaker-defibrillator that works to ensure his heart keeps beating at a steady pace, and will deliver a shock if it stops, because his brain doesn't completely deliver the messages it's supposed to tell his heart.

"My brain is getting it right about 4 percent of the time," he said. It's delivered a shock just once, about 3-1/2 years after it was implanted. "That's why science created these things."

Other than that he does not give it much thought.

"I went back to living," Brian said. He and Wendy, who celebrated their 24th wedding anniversary on Nov. 2, travel more, taking long weekends and trips with their daughters. They make an effort to spend more time with friends.

Brian also make sure to get in plenty of rides on roller coasters, one of his passions.

"I'm sort of back where I was, with a fresher, cleaner outlook," Brian said. "The things that were important are still important."

While he made an extra effort this week to show his appreciation to all of the EMTs who work for Brick, Brian said he has had the opportunity to thank Bloomer in person.

It was sheer coincidence, during the eighth-grade graduation of one of his daughters.

"I knew (Bloomer's) name from the report," Brian said. He had requested the police report from the response to his cardiac arrest because he wanted to know the details of who had saved him.

As he and his wife walked through the gym at Brick Memorial for the graduation, he passed one of the EMTs.

"The name jumped out at me because I had read it on the report," Brian said.

"I saw him approach me and I realized who he was because we have mutual friends," Bloomer said.

They had a brief conversation because Bloomer was working, but Brian said he made sure to let Bloomer know how much he was grateful for saving his life.

"It was the first person i’ve done CPR on that I have interacted with after," Bloomer said. "It’s one of those things you just go on about your business."

"It was nice to see that he was doing as well as he was doing and following up," Bloomer said. "Some of them still sit in your head and you can replay it like it was yesterday."

"I might be his only save ever from something like that," Brian said. "It’s a pretty weird thing to live with."

While he's marking the day that he got a second chance at life, Brian said the memories of that day stay in the past for the most part.

"Wendy and I don’t talk about the day," Brian said, and he doesn't discuss it with his daughters.

Beyond his pacemaker-defibrillator and yearly checkups, there are few other outward reminders.

"I'm not emotional. Not a whole lot moves the needle," Brian said.

Except for the shirt.

"The shirt is still there. That one thing has stayed where we left it."

Brian said he may finally get rid of it as he marks the anniversary.

"It may be time," he said.