A police officer from Northeast Philadelphia who suffered a heart attack while struggling with a suspect last week is out of a coma.
Officer Michael Gwynn, 31, collapsed while making an arrest in the 35th district, FOP president John McNesby said Monday afternoon after he visited Gwynn in the hospital.
McNesby said Gwynn had been in a violent struggle with a suspect before he was found by two other officers early Friday.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported two other 35th district officers, Jeffrey Lendzinski and Timothy Straus, found the unconscious Gwynn on top of Havon Cooper at about 1 a.m. on the 4800 block of N. Seventh St., performed CPR and rushed him to Albert Einstein Medical Center.
“They actually saved his life,” McNesby said Monday.
Gwynn lives near Holme Circle with his wife and two children. His parents live in the Far Northeast, McNesby said. Gwynn has been a police officer about four years, he added.
The Inquirer reported doctors revived Gwynn and induced a coma. McNesby said Monday that the officer was out of the coma.
Gwynn was working in Olney when he came upon Cooper shortly before 1 a.m., the Inquirer reported, and called for assistance as he began chasing him. Lendzinski and Straus saw Gwynn holding Cooper down, but when they got to them, Gwynn was unconscious.
Cooper was charged with resisting arrest, simple assault and aggravated assault. He remains in custody at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility on State Road. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Dec. 19.
Cooper’s criminal record includes convictions for assault, theft, conspiracy, robbery and probation violations. ••
