Midtown runner eyes New York City
Marathon after brush with death
BY EMILY DAVENPORT
A Midtown man is not letting his
heart problems stand in the way
of maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
Fifty-year-old Gregg Templeton has
always been a runner. He started running
as a way to expel energy when he was a
teenager, and it quickly became a part of
his lifestyle. He ran cross country in college
at the University of Arizona, and as
an adult, he has completed more than 70
races, triathlons and marathons.
Templeton says he comes from a healthy
family and tried his best to be healthy on
his own. As a former Wall Street worker,
Templeton was no stranger to stress —
aside from the daily stress of his job,
Templeton is also a 9/11 survivor and was
on the 73rd floor of one of the towers when
the plane hit the building. In 2016, some
stress regarding his job that made him get
help for his heart.
“In 2016, it was the stress from a termination
from employment. That was my
widowmaker, my doctor placed a stent
in my heart,” Templeton recalled. “Some
things happened, I had some stress in my
life, and ultimately got even more stressed
out.”
Templeton went on to need more procedures
done, including placing multiple
stents in his arteries. Templeton’s cardiologist,
Dr. Varinder Singh, who serves as the
Chairman of Cardiovascular Medicine at
Lenox Hill Hospital, told him he needed
to lose 30 pounds.
However, things took a turn for the
deadly last year. On Dec. 22, 2020,
Templeton was at home when he started
to feel some discomfort.
“I felt weak, light-headed, and had shortness
of breath,” said Templeton. “It was an
aortic dissection.”
An aortic dissection is when the inner
layer of the aorta, the large blood vessel
branching off the heart, tears. It is most
common in men in their 60s and 70s, and
is usually fatal — 40 percent of people who
experience aortic dissection die almost
instantly, and the risk of death increases
by 3-4 percent every hour the condition is
left untreated.
“You feel the tearing, the ripping, like
a searing sensation,” said Templeton. “It’s
literally a searing from your neck to your
abdomen.”
Templeton called 911 and was rushed
to the hospital. He underwent a 10-hour
surgery with a group of Lenox Hill Hospital
cardiovascular surgeons led by Jonathan
Hemli, MD, who rebuilt Templeton’s aorta
using a graft and repaired his ruptured leg
artery. He had seven small strokes during
PHOTO COURTESY OF NORTHWELL HEALTH
Gregg Templeton
the surgery and was in a medically induced
coma afterward.
“It was a catastrophic event. He should
have died from that,” said Dr. Singh. “He
basically ripped his aorta. For years when
he wasn’t living well, he developed plaque.
Imagine a two-layer wall, when it rips,
blood gets into there, and then a thin layer
is keeping blood in the body.”
As a result, Templeton had over 100
staples throughout his body, with 52 staples
in his leg alone. He spent a couple of weeks
in the cardiac ICU where he had roundthe
clock care from the staff at Lenox Hill
Hospital.
With home visits and monitoring of his
vitals, Templeton has been slowly recovering
since the surgery and has only gone on
a run three times since. He goes on walks
every day, and plays the piano to help bring
some strength back to his arm, which was
suffering from dexterity issues as a result
of the aortic dissection.
Templeton has already been cleared to
run and has a spot in the New York City
Marathon this year, assuming that it happens
due to COVID-19. If the marathon
takes place, Templeton intends to honor
his caregivers and run with a jersey emblazoned
with the words “Lenox Hill Hospital
Cardiac.”
“I was supposed to run the marathon last
year but the Roadrunners canceled it due
to COVID,” said Templeton. “I don’t think
it’s going to happen. It’s like a horse corral.
Pre-COVID, it was fun — you’d be stretching
with everyone, music would play. Now
I don’t know how they’d do it with 50,000
when you can only have 2,000 people in
Madison Square Garden. Who knows, it’s
8 months away.”
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Roosevelt Is. woman uncovers secret apt. behind bathroom mirror
BY ROSE ADAMS
Mirror, mirror on the wall,
who has the biggest
apartment of all?
A woman realized that her
three-bedroom apartment on
Roosevelt Island was really a sixbedroom
dwelling after discovering
a deserted apartment lurking
on the other side of her bathroom
mirror.
Samantha Hartsoe — who documented
the discovery in a series of
TikTok videos on Thursday — said
she decided to take a peek behind
the mirror after realizing that cold
air was blowing out from behind it.
“I’m in my New York City
apartment and it’s cold. Obviously,
it doesn’t matter how high the heat
goes, I’m cold,” Hartsoe explained
in her first video. “So I go in the
bathroom, and the air is coming
from the mirror.”
The Alabama native took down
the mirror and found a series of
wires in the inner wall. Opposite
the hole behind her mirror was
another rectangular hole, which
peered into another room.
The videos, which have racked
up more than 9 million views as
of Friday evening, show Hartsoe
climbing through the hole with
a flashlight strapped to her head
with a headband, and stepping
into the mysterious space, she told
New York Magazine.
“I have to find my way out
of here,” Hartsoe thought after
climbing through the hole behind
her mirror, according to the magazine.
“I have to go back through
that hole, which is pretty much
impossible, or I have to find the
exit of this place, which means I
have to, at this point, explore it all.”
The 26-year-old’s friend, John,
handed her a hammer for protection,
which she gripped as she
walked through the abandoned,
three-room apartment to ominous
music.
“John, there’s trash bags and
stuff!” she whispered. Despite the
few signs of life, including a water
bottle, the apartment seemed
uninhabitable: there was exposed
piping, an uninstalled toilet, and
damaged walls.
Hartsoe also discovered the
source of the cold air — the windows
of the apartment had been
left wide open, she told New York
Magazine.
Hartsoe walked out the apartment’s
front door, which was
curiously located at a different
part of her apartment complex,
and came back to reinstall the
mirror.
“My landlord is getting a really
fun phone call tomorrow!” she
said.
Hartsoe told NBC News that
she hasn’t contacted her landlord
yet, but that she’s reached out to
the building’s maintenance team
to seal up the hole behind her
mirror. SCREENSHOT VIA TIKTOK/@SAMANTHARTSOE
1100 M Maarcrchh1 111,2 2002211 SScchhnneeppss MMeeddiiaa
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