First Posted: 2/2/2015
TOLEDO (AP) — The mayor of Toledo was heavily sedated and in critical condition at a hospital Monday, a day after having a heart attack while driving during a snowstorm.
Mayor D. Michael Collins, 70, was on his way home after a news conference about the storm and may have been checking road conditions when he went into cardiac arrest and crashed into a utility pole at about 2 p.m. Sunday.
A passer-by who saw the mayor’s crashed SUV gave him CPR until emergency personnel arrived, said Dr. Christopher Cooper, a cardiologist and dean of the University of Toledo medical school. Collins was not conscious at the time.
Collins is being treated at the University of Toledo Medical Center, where he was sedated and being closely monitored in the intensive care unit, Cooper said in a statement Monday morning. It’s too early to give a prognosis on his recovery, he said.
City Council President Paula Hicks-Hudson was sworn in as acting mayor Sunday afternoon and praised the unidentified passer-by who rendered first aid.
“The act of this one person who was there at our mayor’s time of need shows this is a great city,” Hicks-Hudson said at a news conference Sunday.
Collins, a retired police officer and former city councilman, became mayor in January 2014.
The independent’s first year in office has been tumultuous. Shortly after he was sworn in, two city firefighters died battling an apartment fire and the city endured the worst winter in its history.
Summer brought widespread, toxic algae blooms in Lake Erie that caused the city to cut off water service to 400,000 people in the Toledo area. Collins then found himself trying to keep Fiat Chrysler Automobiles from moving its Jeep Wrangler production line out of Toledo.
