BOSTON -- Two security screeners at Logan International Airport were credited with keeping a heart attack patient alive Friday until EMTs arrived.

NewsCenter 5's Janet Wu reported that Transportation Security Administration Supervisor Robert Lomanno received a call at about 11 a.m. that an 89-year-old man was slumped over in his wheelchair sitting in a passageway in Terminal B.

TSA screener Dave Lynch, a retired captain for the Swampscott Fire Department, heard the call and grabbed the defibrillator.

"We both checked his pulse and realized he wasn't breathing. We lifted him up, put him on the floor. Dave started going through the defibrillator. He opened it up, and he told me to open his shirt and start doing CPR," Lomanno said.

"We set up the defibrillator, and they are amazing machines. They take you right through it. It talks you right through. We were able to administer shocks to this individual," Lynch said.

The airport was crammed with passengers. About 60,000 people were flying out of Logan.

Lomanno and Lynch said they were hunched over the gentleman for about three minutes before emergency personnel arrived, but police said it was three very important minutes.

"Within three minutes, this gentleman got everything he could get," Massachusetts State Police Trooper James Higgins said. "It's a vital part."

"Quite frankly, I'm not surprised because all of them have very much a community spirit. Many of them have tremendous skills from their prior careers before they came to TSA," Federal Security Director George Naccara said.

But Lynch and Lomanno said defibrillators are not hard to figure out. The audio instructions are clear and simple. They're hoping Friday's heroics could help passengers look at TSA screeners, who don't often get smiles, in a new light.

"So maybe today people realize why we're here -- not only for security but we are here to help them," Lomanno said.

MassPort installed 74 defibrillators about two years ago. They've been used four times.