One North Texas man is grateful for the medical team at the Cowtown Marathon for saving his life – and he wasn’t even there to run the race.
Joel King, of Joshua, was working at the Will Rogers Memorial Center last Sunday morning when he began feeling strange. His right hand started tingling and he started feeling light-headed.
King’s first instinct was to lay down and wait for the feeling to pass. But another instinct forced him to walk over to the Cowtown’s emergency medical tent, set up just feet away from where he was working.
“I don’t think I would have made it had they not been there,” King said. “I don’t think I would have made it.”
Dr. Darrin D’Agostino, of Medical City Fort Worth and the UNT Health Science Center, was inside the tent with his Cowtown Marathon team, ready to treat any runners.
But when King walked in and they hooked him up an electrocardiogram machine, D’Agostino knew it would be a race to save his life. King was having a heart attack.
“Had he waited and tried to fight through this, at a minimum, he would have damaged a very large portion of his heart, which would have made him a cardiac cripple,” D’Agostino said. “Or he would have dropped dead.”
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King’s left anterior descending coronary artery – known as the “widow maker” – was 100-percent clogged.
He was rushed to Medical City Fort Worth where he suffered from "sudden death" and was shocked back to life. Doctors put stents in his chest.
When King’s father was 55 years old, he died from the same massive heart attack.
Joel King is 56.
His family – three children and wife Erika King – is grateful to marathon doctors who happened to be in the right place, at the right time.
“I don’t want to think ‘what if,’” Erika King said. “I want to think, he’s here. And we are very thankful for that.”
The couple plans to be at next year’s Cowtown Marathon to cheer on runners – and doctors.
The race attracts about 25,000 runners from all over the country.
D’Agostino said they typically treat about 500 runners for various injuries or ailments. The emergency medical area has been used three times during the last five marathons, including Joel King’s case.
D'Agostino and Joel King both stressed how important it is to listen to your body and seek attention as soon as any symptoms begin.
