BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) – This holiday season looked very different for postal worker Jim Griggs and his family after a heart attack on the job left them unsure if he would even return home at all, but now, there is a glimmer of hope for his family.
Griggs, 45, is a lifelong Western New Yorker who had only been a letter carrier with USPS for just over a month when a routine day at work on Dec. 12 turned into a fight for his life.
“That morning I was actually talking to Jim about Christmas and the plans he had with our daughters,” said Jim’s ex-wife, Krystina Griggs. “And then I hadn’t heard back in a while and around my lunch break, I got a message from his mother telling me that there was an emergency and he had collapsed on his route…it turned out he had a massive heart attack.”
Krystina told WIVB News 4 that strangers who witnessed her ex-husband collapse did CPR until the ambulance arrived, when he was rushed to Mercy Hospital of Buffalo.
He was later transferred to Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, where he spent weeks undergoing multiple procedures to save his life.
