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Westwood P.O. Scott McNiff
But Westwood Police Officer Scott McNiff had different ideas, she said.
Others at the 70th birthday party for Rosenbauer’s friend tried but couldn’t shake loose the food lodged in her throat. But by pressing repeatedly on Rosenbauer’s chest — at least 40 times, by one account — McNiff got her breathing again.
“I am going to call the chief of police in Westwood to let him know how much credit this young police officer deserves,” “Marge” Rosenbauer told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
“Three other people attempted the Heimlich and they were not successful,” she explained. “I wasn’t going to make it if he didn’t show up.”
Three dozen adults and several children were at the affair at Banchetto Feast on Center Avenue on Saturday when Rosenbauer began choking, said Kevin Saul, whose mother-in-law was the guest of honor.
“I had a plate in my hand at the buffet when someone said something about a woman choking,” Saul told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “I turned around and saw her right there in the middle of the floor. She was standing for a minute, then she just went down.
“People were standing over her. She was blue.”
Kneeling next to Rosenbauer was Theresa Mondo, a nurse who was visiting from Massachusetts.
While she worked on the unconscious woman, a hostess handed Saul a cell phone so he could tell a 911 dispatcher exactly where they were. Saul, whose brother, Bob, is a Westwood police detective, said he immediately headed toward the front door — to find McNiff running in.
McNiff and Mondo propped up the unconscious woman and tried a half-dozen or so Heimlich thrusts, with no success, he said.
Then McNiff began the compressions, at one point using one hand while he called in a “coded” victim with the other on his police radio, Saul told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
Saul said he offered to help, and the officer asked that he fetch an oxygen kit from his radio car.
“I was just trying to do whatever I could,” Saul said.
As Mondo cleared the prone woman’s airway, McNiff continued pushing on her chest.
After several dozen tries, Rosenbauer gasped.
McNiff and Mondo then turned her on her left side and strapped on a high-flow oxygen mask, Saul told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
Rosenbauer began breathing normally, the color returning to her face. Then she opened her eyes, he said.
Ambulance workers took her out, and an obviously relieved McNiff left to a standing ovation, Saul said.
McNiff couldn’t be reached for comment Sunday.
NEWSBREAK: McNiff and Rosenbauer were later reunited by Channel 7’s “Eyewitness News,” which captured the Hillsdale woman giving the tall officer a tight hug in a video segment posted here: Hero police officer reunited with woman he saved from choking
Rosenbauer herself was a nurse for 40 years, working with her husband, Dr. Howard Rosenbauer, in their Hackensack hometown. They had four children and several grandchildren. Howard and Marge met at Muhlenberg Hospital in Plainfield — he was an intern, she was a nurse. They worked together at his general practice — he even made house calls — until both retired in 1978 and began taking cruises all over the world.
“Then he went and died on me seven years ago,” she told CLIFFVIEW PILOT, in mock sarcasm.
His age? 88.
“I think I’m leading a good life now,” Rosenbauer said. “I still have the grief, but it’s less and less every day. Then this happens.”
She thanked Mondo, EMS of Westwood, the staff at The Valley Hospital, where she was taken, and “all the guys and gals who tried to help me at the restaurant. Absolutely fantastic.”
But most of her gratitude went to McNiff.
“I could just see it,” Rosenbauer said. “Someone would ask, ‘What did she die of?’ And then someone would say, ‘She died from a piece of meat stuck in her throat.’ Can you imagine? That didn’t happen because of him.”
“I take my hat off to him,” Saul added. “These police officers never know what they’re going to walk into from one moment to the next. I don’t know how they do it. One minute you’re having a cup of coffee, the next you’re trying to save someone’s life. That’s difficult.”
Although Rosenbauer said she felt as if she ruined her friend’s party, Saul said that wasn’t the case at all.
“She was smiling as they carried her out. We all were smiling at the end of the night,” he told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “That’s what counts.
“Hey, it gave people something to talk about.”
Rosenbauer said she got an added surprise Sunday when a friend told her that McNiff identified her on his emergency call as a 60-year-old — not an 88-year-old — woman.
“That made my day,” she said.
Then she giggled.
“I think I might go on a diet of mashed potatoes and Jello from here on out,” Rosenbauer said.
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