Every once in a while something so extraordinary happens that begs to be told.

Such an experience started for me when my daughter and I took my dog Charlie for a walk. Toward the end of our walk I noticed some pretty strange symptoms in my back and shoulder, strange enough that my daughter rushed me to the emergency room at Willamette Valley Medical Center.

The emergency room personnel knew I needed immediate attention, and they could not have accommodated me more perfectly. Dr. Paquette perceived that I was having a heart attack.

A clot buster medication was administered and the heart attack was stopped in its track, leaving my heart with no permanent damage. My daughter was allowed to accompany me in the ambulance to Salem Hospital.

Two days later I had quadruple bypass surgery.

I returned to my daughter’s home to recover. Things were amazingly smooth until about the third day when an episode took me back to our Emergency Room.

Once again Dr. Paquette greeted me and, along with Dr. Spears and Dr. Pathial, strategized to come up with what I needed. Following a three-day stay with extraordinary nursing care and a battery of careful diagnostic tests I was released.

I will be forever grateful to this team of experts: Dr Paquette, Dr. Hurty, Dr. Spear and Dr. Pathial as well as the wonderful nurses, Jennifer Root-Ravia and Lisa Sutherland.

McMinnville is so fortunate to have men and women of such caliber to bring about modern day medical miracles. I know they saved my life.