Brentwood school nurse praised for helping save 10-year-old boy

"Keyshawn, you can't die on me!"

Those were the thoughts running through the school nurse's head as she rushed Wednesday afternoon to the stricken 10-year-old boy at Laurel Park Elementary School in Brentwood.

Maryalice Koch tried to revive Keyshawn Grenville as he lay on the playground, drifting in and out of consciousness. His pulse was barely detectable.

Koch soon was assisted by a Suffolk police officer, and together they performed CPR. About two tense minutes later, they revived the student, who was rushed to Southside Hospital in Bay Shore.

Friday, Koch was hailed as a hero, but she humbly deflected the praise.

"I don't feel like a hero. This is my job," Koch, 49, of Holbrook, said after being honored in the school gym. "I love taking care of people. They need nurses who care."

She publicly thanked the officer, John McAuley, 39, who is part of the department's medical crisis action team, a unit of 25 officers with specialized advanced lifesaving training.

"I would love to meet him," she said. "I really would. I would love to just say thanks."

A former nursing assistant, Koch has been a nurse at Laurel Elementary for two years. She had become a nurse 10 years ago to better care for her developmentally disabled daughter, Christina, now 18.

"She was my inspiration," Koch said.

Brentwood school district Superintendent Levi McIntyre said nurses like Koch are vitally important -- and for some students, their only access to health care.

Underscoring Wednesday's emergency, Koch said that, in her school job, "you don't just fix boo-boos."

Police said Koch did chest compressions as McAuley ventilated the boy with a bag-valve mask, designed to pump oxygen into his lungs.

"Between him and I, we got it," Koch said.

McAuley, a 13-year veteran, performed "an act of heroism," said Tim Sini, Suffolk police deputy commissioner.

Keyshawn, who has an unspecified medical condition and collapsed during recess, was resting Friday night at Cohen Children's Medical Center in New Hyde Park, Queens, McIntyre said.

A family member Friday said they were grateful for Koch and McAuley's lifesaving efforts, declining further comment.

On Wednesday, Koch said she visited Keyshawn in the Southside emergency room. She asked if she could give him a kiss on the forehead. He said yes.

"They just need a hug once in a while. They just need to know that someone out there cares," she said. "Honestly, that's what I'm in it for."