SayGoodnightGracie.Org

Written by Gracie McKenna

he New York Times article titled, 30 Minutes: Fighting to Save a Life on the Streets of New York, retells the harrowing account of the day a French tourist suffered a heart attack on the busy streets of New York City. 63 year-old Axel Farhi and his wife Betsy, had just made the journey from France to the Big Apple in late June of 2021. They had planned to spend their time in the concrete jungle with their two adult children, Claire and Max, both of whom resided in the city. That July 10th, the family spent their day together in Union Square Park, when suddenly with no warning, Farhi collapsed onto the concrete sidewalk while the family was headed to the Subway. Farhi was immediately unresponsive to his family members calling out his name. Fortunately, two on-duty police officers were adjacent to the scene and rushed over to help after witnessing the incident. 26 year-old Eddie Griffin and 24 year-old Lily Graham, sprung into action to properly assess the situation. After establishing Farhi still had a pulse, they rushed him to an ambulance. It was later confirmed that Farhi takes blood-pressure medication and suffers from high blood pressure. Medical examiners determined the massive heart attack he experienced had been caused by a blockage in his left anterior descending artery. Luckily, Farhi was taken to a nearby hospital, where he fully recovered and rehabilitated.

I found myself having to re-read this article several times before I fully understood what the story was. Although the article itself is very descriptive, incorporating many details of Farhi’s personal life and story, I found it to be unnecessarily descriptive and at times very confusing–jumping from side story to side story. When reading an article, especially one relating to a tragic event like this, I, the reader, want to know the most important aspects of the story as soon as possible–what happened, who it happened to, where it happened, and what the conclusion is. The unnecessary details, like what Farhi was wearing or the officer’s exact height, could have been pushed to the end of the story or not included at all. All in all, I felt the article was very difficult to understand, breakdown, and consume. I couldn’t immediately decipher the important details from the unimportant ones, oftentimes getting hung up on the unimportant ones–like how Farhi and his wife, Betsy, first met. The vocabulary was difficult to understand and the use of dialog made the article feel more like a creative writing piece than a story being reported on. On the other hand, one could make the argument that the story was written well academically, utilizing an abundance of imagery throughout, and really painting a picture for readers. I personally don’t think that side of storytelling should outweigh the actual news and reporting in an article, and in this case it definitely did—the verbal illustrations and excess imagery felt unnecessary and ended up distracting from the reporting.

February 3, 2026