The pastor of a Mansfield Church was back in the pulpit Sunday just days after suffering heart failure and receiving a pacemaker from a doctor -- who had visited his church for the first time the previous Sunday.
Little did the two men realize they'd meet in the hospital just four days later.
"Let me just say I'm really glad to be in church this morning," said Pastor Barry Cameron, of Crossroads Christian Church. "For those that don't know, I had a little issue this week."
The 63-year-old said he started feeling fatigued before he went to the Bahamas last week for a pastor's conference.
But he pushed on and even played 18 holes of golf.
"And I actually played pretty well," he joked.
When he got home, his personal doctor urged him to go to Methodist Mansfield Medical Center.
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When he arrived, he was surprised to learn he was having heart failure and that his heart rate had fallen to just 20 beats per minute.
Dr. Curtiss Moore, a young cardiologist, performed surgery, inserting a pacemaker into Cameron's chest.
Turns out the pastor and the doctor had a unique connection.
"I thought, 'Oh my, this is a small world.' I mean it's amazing," Cameron said Wednesday.
The pastor already knew Moore's father, who's also a pastor, and the doctor's sister, who attends Crossroads.
"He said, 'I was just at your church Sunday.' I said, 'Really?'" Cameron said.
"That's exactly what he said," the doctor agreed. "He said, 'I hope you come back.'"
The doctor said he will be back at the church.
And the pastor promises to visit the hospital again -- when his pacemaker needs a new battery in 10 years.
