Nursing Student Saves Woman's Life at Pizza Shop

When a customer collapsed outside Riko's Pizza in Levittown, 19-year-old Saige Colleluori didn't freeze. She ran into action.

The Molloy University sophomore was working her shift in April when she saw the woman drop to the ground. Saige rushed outside to check on her, and the woman's companions said everything was fine.

Moments later, someone ran back inside with terrifying news. The woman wasn't breathing.

Saige checked for a pulse and found nothing. That's when her nursing training kicked in, and she started chest compressions on the pavement outside the restaurant.

"Once I did a full round of compressions, I slowly felt her pulse threading back to me," Saige told News 12. "After two minutes, she started talking again."

The Bethpage native had dreamed of becoming a nurse her whole life. In that moment outside the pizza shop, two years of lectures and practice dummies became something much bigger.

Her coworker Matthew Evans put it simply: "Thank God Saige is here. Without her, I mean she is a lifesaver."

Sunny's Take

Days after the rescue, the woman's daughter walked into Riko's Pizza. She had one message for Saige: thank you for saving my mom's life, and she's going to be OK.

For Saige, the experience proved something powerful. "Everything I've learned at Molloy really translated to a real situation," she said.

The young nursing student went to work that day expecting to serve pizza. Instead, she got to serve her true calling a few years early, giving a family their mother back and proving that heroes sometimes wear aprons instead of scrubs.