BELLEFONTAINE, Ohio — Just 48 hours after a deadly tornado swept through the Indian Lake community, medics received a 911 call for another emergency.
Don Woodmansee was working to hook up the generator at his RV park on the north side of the lake and looking to get the water from the well flowing again.
His neighborhood was spared from the path of the tornado, but utility companies warned it could be days or weeks until the power could come back on.
“It was windy that day. Seemed like I was always breathing hard...” Woodmansee said.
By the time he pulled back into his driveway, the pain was getting worse.
“The pain was going down my arm and I was breathing really hard and the pain was starting to shoot, so I honked the horn several times trying to get my wife’s attention,” he said.
His wife called 911.
Within minutes, Leah Edwards and Chad Kean, who had been working in the tornado’s disaster zone for the last two days, were at his doorstep in minutes.
“I knew right away as soon as I looked at him, this is it. I looked at him and said, 'we gotta move,'” Edwards said.
They needed to get to Mary Rutan Hospital in Bellefontaine.
The problem was, in the wake of the EF3 tornado, people were being diverted from some roads where crews were cleaning up debris and traffic was bumper to bumper.
“So we got in the middle of the line, people started splitting, cars were pulling into ditches, semis were backing up a little bit,” Kean said. “I thought, 'boy this is gonna be a bad result for this gentleman because it is gonna delay the time.' But, we actually got through there pretty quick.”
As Kean navigated the tornado traffic, Edwards called the hospital from her cellphone to share the EKG readings. The storm had taken down the networks they usually use to communicate.
Despite the hurdles from the tornado, Woodmansee made it to the hospital in team for the Cath Lab Team to perform an emergency heart catheterization procedure.
“Once we are able to identify where the blockage is, we were able to go in and stint perfectly,” said Sarah Brown, a registered nurse.
The team had his blood flow restored within 29 minutes, a record for the hospital.
“For a small community hospital, it is a really big thing especially coming from Indian Lake, because you are looking at the response time of them having to get through the debris of the tornado and to make it into Mary Rutan and for us to assemble and open up that blockage as quickly as we can," Brown said. "Every minute counts and it is great to know we can do it in that amount of time."
Now, Woodmansee is getting back to his normal activities, and looking forward to a summer on the lake, with his heroes to thank.
The healthcare workers said his story is an important reminder that people should call 911 right away if they are experiencing symptoms of a heart attack, as timing is everything.