Intrepid News Hound Keeps Living For Story

Russ Greenfield lives for news.

His video footage of North Idaho’s crimes, crashes and calamities airs regularly on KREM-TV, and watching his clips on the evening news exhilarates him. It also helps keep this 68-year-old beanpole of a man alive until he gains enough weight for lifesaving lung surgery.

“Every time I see my film come on, it really hypes me up,” Russ says, basking in the technology crammed into his pint-sized home office in Huetter.

His home is alive with scanner chatter round the clock. He keeps radios, a cell phone, tripods, a camera setup and, usually, oxygen in his truck. His lungs process air so inefficiently that he can’t make it far without an oxygen boost.

“I didn’t take oxygen to the accident scene today, and the paramedics had to take me back to my car,” Russ said. He’s learned in the last month from Kootenai Medical Center to ask for help rather than wear himself out. The surgery he wants can’t bring him back from death.

Russ’ health problems began 30 years ago with a ruptured appendix. One surgery led to 12 more and forced him to retire as an electronic engineer with the U.S. government.

His heavy smoking didn’t help speed recovery. He limped through the 1970s running a detective agency and alarm business in Coeur d’Alene to support his wife and three children.

In 1985, his health plummeted and his wife divorced him. He sought solitude in a small town south of Yuma, Ariz.

“I didn’t want to associate with anyone,” he says. “I went where no one speaks English and I spoke no Spanish.”

Summer heat drove Russ back to Coeur d’Alene as his health collapsed. Doctors at Spokane’s Veterans Administration Medical Center diagnosed him with lung cancer and wanted to remove his left lung.

Russ refused, ignored the diagnosis, kept smoking and returned to the Southwest. He tried to kill his constant painful cough with large doses of tequila until a Mexican woman noticed his illness and gave him teas and medicines from local plants.

“She pulled me out of it within a day,” he said.

The following summer, VA doctors decided his cancer was in remission. He still suffered from stomach and chest pains, but repeated hospitalizations yielded no diagnosis.

He continued to split his residency between Coeur d’Alene and the desert for six years and became known among television crews along the border as the American who could fill them in on the Mexican side of the news.

The Cable News Network aired one of the stories he gave news crews and suggested he buy a camera and do more. But Russ had no money.

He returned to Coeur d’Alene permanently in 1991 to help his mother and noticed that Spokane’s television crews had trouble covering North Idaho. He bought a camera on credit, shot footage of a car chase from Spokane into Idaho and kicked off his new career.

KREM-TV quickly became his regular customer. Paychecks rolled in and he bought scanners, a computer, editing equipment and a satellite dish.

But his work was constantly hyphenated by hospital stays. He quit smoking, but he couldn’t walk five feet without extra oxygen. A year ago, a Coeur d’Alene doctor determined that air sacs in each of Russ’ lungs were impeding his breathing.

He used so much energy breathing that his weight plunged to 92 pounds. His skin clung to his 6-foot-1 frame when he checked into Kootenai Medical Center last January.

By then, he’d signed organ donor papers and made care arrangements for his beloved yellow Labrador, Amigo. But his doctor didn’t agree that he was ready to die. He put Russ on a high-calorie diet and into KMC’s pulmonary rehabilitation program.

The doctor advised him to undergo surgery in Seattle that reduces the size of the lungs so they work more efficiently.

Russ left the hospital March 27, a strapping 101 pounds.

“They built me back up,” he said, his voice thick with appreciation. “I have hope.”

He’s up to 110 pounds now and back to chasing the news with help from a friend, Dorothy Clark. When he reaches 120 pounds, he’ll head to Seattle for surgery evaluation. Until then, he’ll keep his ear to the scanner.

“Pulmonary rehab wants me out there on the news scene,” he said, waving his cane at the three TV screens in his living room. “It’s definitely medicine for me.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo