Heart attack strikes Bartini's owner, but Suffolk police officer revives Bay Shore's Dave Drew
Dave Drew, who lives in Bay Shore, is a co-owner of Bartini in Babylon. Credit: Drew family
Around the Drew home in Bay Shore, the late Maggie Drew referred to her husband, Dave, as "George Bailey," the Jimmy Stewart character from "It’s a Wonderful Life." That's because, according to his son, also named Dave, his father is a good guy, has a lot of friends and always has someone looking out for him.
On Monday night, the elder Dave Drew got a reprieve reminiscent of the movie when he suffered a massive "widow-maker heart attack" while performing an original song on stage at Bartini, the bar he co-owns on North Carll Avenue in Babylon.
After calling 911, patrons went outside and flagged down a passing Suffolk County police officer who used a patrol unit automated external defibrillator to resuscitate Drew.
"People who have this attack die most of the time," his son, 47, said on Friday during a phone interview from outside his father's ICU room at Good Samaritan University Hospital in West Islip. "My dad? He had it in the exact right place: on stage, with people in the bar, and with a cop with an AED in the car driving by who was able to come in and save him. How George Bailey is that?"
According to Suffolk police, First Precinct Officer Michael Pascale was on patrol on North Carll Avenue around 8:55 p.m. Monday when "he was flagged down by multiple individuals regarding a man suffering an apparent cardiac emergency," police said in a statement Friday to Newsday,
"Officer Pascale administered three shocks from an AED and revived the man."
Police confirmed Drew, 67, of Bay Shore, was then transported to Good Samaritan, where on Friday he remained intubated in the ICU.
His son said Drew was in critical but stable condition.
In a telephone interview on Friday afternoon, Pascale, who attended North Babylon High School, said his normal patrol area was one sector over but he just happened to be doing a check on the area around a nearby Long Island Rail Road station when bar patrons stopped him.
"These people ran out, stopped the car, said, 'You've got to come inside, there's this guy who collapsed.' "
Pascale said once he saw Drew he knew it was bad.
"I went over to him and I could just tell," Pascale said. "His chest was not rising, he had no pulse. I ran back to my car, requested rescue, grabbed the AED. I put the AED on him and it said, 'Shock.' It never says that. I shocked him once. Nothing. We started doing CPR. I think I shocked him three times while we were there and got a pulse, then Babylon [Fire Department] Rescue came in and started working on him."
Drew's son said his father grew up in Westbury and met Maggie Drew when the two were students at Holy Trinity High School. He worked as a quality control inspector for the U.S. Department of Defense and also was employed as a missile control guidance systems expert for Sperry Corp. before he retired and bought into Bartini more than 10 years ago.
The Drews had five children. Son Dave and his wife, Diana, live in Binghamton with their sons — Davey, 16, Colin, 13, and Jesse, 12. Daughters Jess and Alison live in San Diego. A son Dylan, lives in San Francisco. Another son, Ian, lives with his father in Bay Shore.
Dave Drew said his mother died two years ago of cancer.
His thoughts on the miracle save?
"I’m not exactly a 'things happen for a reason'-type guy," the son said on Friday. "But, four years ago my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer and the doctor said he was going to live six months. Then my mother died and we thought because of the grief, a year of him crying all the time, we might lose him then. Now, this heart attack. ... That’s three times we thought we lost him and got him back again — and, that’s something, isn’t it? All, kind of fortuitous. My mom always said, ‘George Bailey, you’re the richest man in town — because you’ve got friends.’
"All I know is the stars had to align for this to happen. I guess it wasn’t his time."
As Pascale said: "The fact I was out in front driving by? Maybe somebody was looking out for him."
John Valenti, a Newsday reporter since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press, Society of the Silurians and National Headliner Awards for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing. He is the author of “Swee'pea,” about New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. His debut crime novel, “For Nothing Is Hidden,” rooted in 1950s Long Island, was released in October 2025.
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