MAUREEN RENAGHAN Hero rushed onto field.
SURVIVOR: Ian McGreevey was rushed to the hospital after being revived and is expected to be OK, cops said. (
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She’s an angel!
An 8-year-old baseball player went into cardiac arrest and stopped breathing when he was struck in the chest by a thrown ball yesterday — but a good Samaritan saved his life after rushing to his aid from the stands.
Ian McGreevey was sliding into third base during a youth-league game at Highland Field in Harrington Park, NJ, at about 2 p.m. when he was hit by a ball thrown by the catcher.
Hero mom Maureen Renaghan — whose husband coaches Ian’s rivals, the Angels — saw the drama from the stands.
“Our catcher tried to throw him out, and the ball hit him just under his heart and he fell. He just fell to his knees,” she said.
Ian collapsed, stopped breathing and lost his pulse. His eyes rolled back in his head.
Renaghan, 40, who learned CPR 20 years ago for a camp-counselor job, ran onto the field.
“His eyes were open. His lips were already turning purple. I immediately started doing compressions,” Renaghan told The Post.
“And that didn’t seem to do anything. His mouth was kind of clenched shut. I had to pry it open and started giving puffs.
“On the fourth puff I gave him, he coughed — and I could tell he was going to throw up.
“By the time police got there, he was breathing,” Renaghan said.
Ian’s mom — who missed the game — praised Renaghan’s quick work.
“Maureen is the real hero. She saved my son’s life. He might not have made it if she wasn’t there,” Lisa McGreevey said outside the hospital. “The doctors said the ball directly hit his heart. The odds were so slim, it’s crazy.”
Renaghan, whose son, Jack, 10, plays for the Angels, said she was just acting on instinct.
“I just couldn’t let him go. I had to do something,” she said. “I’m glad I could do anything to help that family and that child.”
She said all mothers should be trained in lifesaving techniques.
“It could be your own child that you save,” Renaghan said.
Police from surrounding towns blocked several roads in the area to speed the boy’s ambulance ride to Hackensack University Medical Center’s Westwood campus.
Doctors there sent him via airlift to the hospital’s main Hackensack facility for further treatment.
“He was conscious, alert, responsive, and it looked like he was going to be OK,” said Harrington Park Police Chief Albert Maalouf.
The chief praised Renaghan’s lifesaving performance. “She reacted immediately . . . CPR is integral to saving people’s lives and has to be initiated immediately,” he said.
Renaghan’s husband said of his wife, “She’s just a super mom.”
The close call came as a New Jersey family last year won a $22 million lawsuit from an aluminum-bat manufacturer when a 12-year-old nearly died after being hit in the chest by a ball hit off the bat.
Steven Domalewski suffered permanent brain damage after his heart stopped for 20 minutes during a 2006 Little League game he pitched in Wayne.
Additional reporting by Pedro Oliveira Jr.