Heartfelt Thanks

Gene Burton survives heart attack due to quick action by his wife and firefighters, one of which is a former student

By Mara Stine

The Gresham Outlook, Dec 2, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (3 Reader comments)

Jim Clark / Gresham Outlook

Gresham firefighters Reggy Becker, left, and Greg Matthews discuss helping Gene Burton when his heart stopped outside the fire station. Burton was Becker's music teacher from the fifth through the eighth grades.

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After almost dying from a heart attack on Sunday, Nov. 23, Gresham resident Darwin “Gene” Burton was especially grateful this Thanksgiving.

“I am just thankful to be here today,” Gene said over the phone from his hospital bed at Providence Portland Medical Center.

Gene, 48, was diagnosed with high cholesterol three years ago, and his acid reflux had been getting worse, so on Saturday, Nov. 22, he saw his doctor. After comparing his electrocardiogram to one taken in 2002, the doctor didn’t see any problems. But just to be sure, he scheduled more tests for Monday, Nov. 24.

So Gene — who is a band teacher at Dexter McCarty Middle School and Gresham High School — spent the rest of Saturday at Trinity Lutheran Church’s Advent festival. Sunday found him raking leaves in the yard of his Southwest Gresham home. While raking, he sat down to let a spell of painful acid reflux pass. But his wife Tami sensed something else was wrong and insisted on taking him to the hospital.

On the way there, Gene took a turn for worse.

“I don’t think I can make it,” he said, and suggested stopping at the nearest fire station. Station 71 at Gresham City Hall was on the way, so Tami rushed there.

But it was Sunday. The front office doors were locked.

Tami whipped out her cellular phone and called 9-1-1. Dispatchers alerted the station’s firefighters of the medical emergency at their door and they sprang into action.

But before they could get there, Gene passed out. Although Tami had taken CPR classes, it was some time ago, so the 9-1-1 dispatcher talked her through it.

When Gresham Firefighter Reggy Becker arrived on the scene, he saw Tami, her pink cellular phone in one hand with the other delivering chest compressions to her husband, who she’d reclined in the front passenger seat of her silver Honda.

Becker and Firefighter Ray Kellstrom took over administering CPR.

“He was lifeless, pulseless,” said Lt. Greg Matthews, who also was on the 11:40 a.m. call. An ambulance and fire truck arrived, bringing the total number of emergency responders on the scene to 10. They connected the patient to a monitor, administered an IV and shocked his heart.

“He pinked up within about 30 seconds of doing CPR,” Becker said “I’d never seen anything like that … wow.”

Usually when a patient is revived, they’re not conscious. But Gene was conscious and understood what the medics were saying. “It was just incredible.”

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