Retired Surgeon Praises Quick Response Doctor Suffering Heart Attack Impressed By Ambulance Crew, Others In Chain

A retired doctor who suffered a heart attack two weeks ago near Hope, Idaho, credits his survival to a seamless medical response that started with the Clark Fork Valley Ambulance.

Jack Hurley, 70, was loading his boat full of emergency supplies May 17 at the Idaho Country Resorts at Trestle Creek, where he lives in his 26-foot trailer.

Hurley, a retired orthopedic surgeon from Spokane, decided a few years ago to get involved with the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary so that he could help other boaters in trouble.

So he was piling flares, blankets, whistles and dozens of other items into his boat to make it a fully operational auxiliary rescue vessel.

“All of a sudden I got this profound feeling of weakness, which I’d never felt before,” Hurley said this week from a friend’s home in Spokane, where he was recovering from open-heart surgery.

“I knew something bad was going on right now,” he said. “So I called for help, and I got it beautifully.”

After calling 911, Hurley estimated it was only 12 minutes before the Clark Fork Valley Ambulance and its emergency medical technicians arrived.

Clark Fork Valley Ambulance President Russ Schenck was a little skeptical that the crew could have arrived that fast, but there’s no doubt they responded immediately.

The 16-member volunteer force takes turns covering 12-hour on-call shifts. Usually, at least three people are on call, Schenck said.

In Hurley’s case, there were four crew members. Two were fresh out of training and “they were just crackerjack. They were great,” said fellow crew member Joyce Pence.

Hurley, however, was in denial, Pence said. “He was trying to pass it off as if it were nothing.”

Hurley admitted he thought he was just having a reaction to an anti-cholesterol drug he started taking a couple of days earlier. In fact, he called his internist before calling 911.

“We had all these protocol we had to follow, thank God,” Pence said.

The ambulance crew whisked Hurley off to Bonner General Hospital, where doctors made the correct diagnosis that a portion of his heart wasn’t receiving any blood. They called Medstar, the helicopter ambulance.

“The crew made me feel real comfortable,” Hurley said. “We laughed all the way to Spokane, which is pretty good for a guy who might be (dying) from a heart attack.

“When I got to Spokane, everything went snap, crackle, pop.”

Hurley underwent open-heart surgery for a vessel bypass, and suffered virtually no muscle damage, he said.

“Maybe 20 years ago I had decided personally that if I had a heart attack I’d rather be in Spokane than Boston or New York,” Hurley said. “The quality of care in Spokane is superb. So when I finally get my episode, where am I? I’m in Hope, Idaho.”

But thanks to an efficient response, it made no real difference that he was miles from a major hospital, Hurley said.

“I was tremendously impressed with two things: this whole regional medical system worked and I survived,” he said. “Here were all kinds of people who did a great job, and it was routine.”

Once Hurley recovers to the point where he can drive back to Hope, he plans to finish outfitting his boat, so he can help others in need.