Call me Lazarus
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Editor,
I would like to belatedly thank a number of people — most of whom I've never met — who saved my life June 3.
On that day, I was wheeling my bride, Penelope, who'd had surgery on her broken ankle the day before, around the block in a wheelchair near St. Joseph Hospital. While returning to the hospital, Penelope said I made a funny noise; the wheelchair stopped, and she looked around and saw me lying on the ground. According to her account, four people in the parking lot near Polson Health and Rehabilitation Center above her left their vehicle and came to help. An RN from the Center also ran to the scene and began CPR. Someone called the ambulance, which responded as did Karen Sargent, (I just learned this a couple of days ago) who was at the hospital.
The "Readers' Digest" version of the story is that completely without any warning, I suffered atrial fibrillation; the heart went into tachycardia and failed. I was dead. Apparently, the RN and the paramedics started my heart several times before the ER shipped me off to Kalispell and later, Spokane, Wash. I was there, "repaired" and released a week later and back in Polson more than a week before my bride was released from St. Joseph. She is just beginning to walk completely on her own.
I'm sorry to have waited so long to gratefully and humbly thank all those who were involved in rescuing me and mine from oblivion. I wish I knew all your names so that I could personally shake your hands.
Call me Lazarus,
Glenn Timm
Polson
