Height of heroism: Firefighter leads a midair resuscitation

Emergencies look for heroes, it seems, and on multiple occasions, they’ve found Jesse Caney.

The Acton firefighter was trying to catch some shuteye on a plane when his girlfriend jolted him awake high above the Atlantic Ocean. 

He leaped into action and helped resuscitate a woman who had passed out aboard their JetBlue flight. 

Firefighters are familiar with working in “cramped, tiny positions” with unresponsive patients, Caney said. The only difference here was “I was on an airplane.”

“Our members don’t think of service as something that starts and stops with a shift,” Fire Chief Brian Whitney told The Acton Bridge. “They carry that sense of responsibility with them everywhere.”

A witness relayed the response to Acton Fire Department leadership, and the Select Board honored Caney this month. 

He “demonstrated exceptional leadership,” town leaders wrote in a proclamation, and his actions were an “outstanding representation” of Acton values.

“It’s really very impressive,” Select Board Chair Mark Howell said. 

Caney’s colleagues packed the meeting room for the honors.

Prior rescues

It was just the latest in a line of off-duty responses for Caney, who concedes he’s known “as a magnet for bad things.”

Caney has worked in Acton for nearly seven years. He won recognition in 2024 after helping a teen hurt in a Westfield motorcycle crash.

A year earlier, Caney said, he pulled a woman from a “horrific” crash in California. He was able to save a dog from the fatal wreck. 

Caney and his girlfriend were on their way back from Puerto Rico last month when their fellow passenger went unresponsive around midnight. 

The woman and her partner spoke only Spanish, so a flight attendant helped translate. An EMT aboard the flight took notes for Caney, and a pediatrician lent his expertise in parsing the woman’s possible health conditions as they looked through a cache of medications in her bag. 

Caney said he didn’t initially feel a pulse and the woman wasn’t breathing. He started a chest compression after laying the woman on the floor, but said she took a labored breath, “so I backed off.” He placed an oxygen mask on her and stayed in touch with a JetBlue medical staffer via phone.

The woman “slowly came to,” Caney said, but every time they tried to help her sit up, “she dropped back out.” 

They kept her flat for roughly 40 minutes until the plane landed in Rhode Island. She had her heartbeat back, and she was breathing, Caney said.

Emergency responders at T.F. Green International Airport took over when the plane landed, and Caney said he never learned what had caused the woman’s emergency. JetBlue spokespersons didn’t immediately respond to Bridge questions. 

Caney said “the whole joke was” that he went on vacation to get a good night’s rest without the wakeups that come with a firefighter’s job. 

When he handed off the woman’s care to airport crews, he said, “I went home to go to sleep.”