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After his wife, Ruth, drove him from their home in Buffalo City, Wis., to
La Crosse, Leahy went into cardiac arrest March 13 in the Gundersen Lutheran emergency department within five minutes of his arrival.
Medical staff used a defibrillator on the 69-year-old man.
“I was choking while lying on the table, and the next thought was they ‘defib’ you and they won’t let you die in peace,” Leahy said, laughing.
“They shocked me three more times in the catheterization lab while cleaning out my blocked right coronary artery,” he said. “I got a couple of stents, and now I feel like a million bucks.”
Dr. A. Daniel Harbin, a Gundersen Lutheran cardiologist, said Leahy is the “poster boy” for Gundersen Lutheran’s Priority One Heart Attack Program, which involves partnering with smaller community hospitals and allowing quicker transport and more efficient treatment of heart attack victims.
Harbin said the program’s goal is to get a patient’s blocked blood vessel opened in less than 90 minutes after admission to a hospital.
Leahy’s heart vessel was opened within 47 minutes.
“That’s bordering on record time,” Harbin said. “National studies show in an acute heart attack there’s nothing more important to survival than getting that artery open as soon as possible when minutes count.
“He went from being a guy on death’s doorstep to a guy who survived and is doing really well,” he said.
Leahy, a former star athlete at Cochrane High School, will be featured tonight at the
La Crosse Loggers baseball game in the “Home Run for Life” story. He will run around the bases as the crowd learns about his medical emergency and his baseball career.
Back in the 1950s, Leahy pitched 12 no-hitters in high school, including a perfect game and two 19-strikeout games, and his final pitch helped Cochrane win its 100th consecutive conference game.
Harbin said he would have preferred that Leahy had called 911 for an ambulance so he could receive heart monitoring. But Leahy said he also knew what he was doing.
More than four months ago, Leahy was using his snowblower to remove snow when the belt broke, and he grabbed a shovel to start shoveling.
“My chest tightened and pain went up my right arm and neck and down by arms,” Leahy said. “It drained my energy. I went into the house and grabbed an aspirin.”
His wife was planning to go for a walk, but Leahy said he didn’t feel good. “She said I was as gray as a battleship,” he said.
Leahy said he was thinking it could be a heart attack and reached for his nitroglycerin — medicine used to prevent and reduce the severity of chest pain and heart attacks.
He had the medicine because 20 years ago he was diagnosed with a heart anomaly in which his coronary arteries were not properly aligned.
Instead of calling 911, Leahy said he decided to have his wife drive him to hospitals in Winona, Minn., or La Crosse.
“I didn’t want to waste any time waiting for an ambulance,” he said.
Leahy took another nitro and felt stable as they passed the Winona hospital and headed to La Crosse. When they got to La Crescent, Minn., he said he called the Gundersen Lutheran emergency department to let the staff know he was having a heart attack.
After treatment, he spent three nights in the hospital and then started cardiac rehabilitation in Winona.
“They got me back into shape,” Leahy said.
Since then, Leahy has taken up running and ran less than a 10-minute mile three weeks ago. Last week he was water skiing in northern Wisconsin.
Harbin said Leahy is fortunate to be alive, and quick action after the cardiac arrest saved his heart muscle and prevented further damage.
“He was one lucky man not to have arrested while on the road,” Harbin said. “Then he was lucky to have arrested in the ER. If you can pick a place to arrest, that’s the place.”
Terry Rindfleisch can be reached at trindfleisch@lacrossetribune.com, or (608) 791-8227.
