Jimi McLeod was mending a fence last July 16 at the farm he has in Downsville when his life almost ended.
It was through the professional care he received from the EMS crew from Halfway Volunteer Fire Co., other emergency responders from Williamsport, and the interventional cardiology staff and others at Meritus Medical Center that he survived a widow-maker heart attack.
“It has a 12 percent survival rate,” he noted in a Facebook post thanking everyone who saved his life.
A tree branch had landed on the fence, and McLeod decided to repair the two broken boards after getting off work at Lowe’s around 5 p.m., he said. It was during the heat wave, when temperatures were in the upper 90s.
As he was working, he thought he was starting to get overheated but still managed to put both boards on by taking a break in between.
“But then I sat in the shop,” he said, “and it took everything I had to get from the shop to the house.”
He still thought it was the heat, but he sent a text message to his wife, Joyce, who was upstairs, to come down and check on him. She initially wanted to call 911, but he hesitated. It was when he realized he couldn’t move his left arm that he asked Joyce to make the call.
The EMS crew quickly assessed he was having a massive heart attack, loaded him on the ambulance and sped to the hospital.
Though McLeod admitted he was fading in and out of consciousness, he remembered hearing the EMS lieutenant checking his vitals and calling them in to the hospital, along with their ETA.
“I didn’t realize how fast they were driving,” he said. “We arrived at the hospital, and I could see all of them waiting. And as I was being wheeled down the hallway, more people were getting around me.
“They jumped on me so fast, like a well-oiled machine.”
It was at that point that he realized he was unable to breathe.
“I decided to just close everything off and focus on living,” he said.
The next thing he knew, it was the next day. He was awake and had tubes and wires connected to him. Dr. Mansoor Ahmad spoke to McLeod in McLeod’s hospital room, explaining what happened and what the next steps would be.
McLeod had to get two more stents, and he was awake for the procedure.
“At the end of the surgery, they turned the screen around and showed me what my artery looked like before the stent and how it looked now,” he said. “The whole thing was amazing.”
During his time in the intensive care and step-down units, he said every nurse and staffer he encountered was professional and kind.
He even got a visit from Meritus President and CEO Maulik Joshi and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anand Budi. Joshi and McLeod’s brother are friends.
“I told them, ‘This service here was above and beyond,’” McLeod said.
All told, he was in the hospital for five days and received visitors including his wife and daughters, friends and others.
Flash forward a few weeks and McLeod was back to work at Lowe’s, though sitting on a stool most of the time.
He wanted to thank those who helped save his life. So, after reaching out to the EMS crew, he put up a Facebook post listing off as many people he could name, explaining what happened and how they are the reason he is still alive.
“There was about three hours or so, I was told, where they didn’t know I was going to make it,” McLeod said. “One little mess up … my time was close.”
