SYSCO Summer Series, Race 1, June 10, 2010

This was a no show for Aventura. The skipper, me, had a heart attack last Saturday. This attack was quite disconcerting. I had one 3 years ago, but that was attributed to high cholesterol. This one was just a clot at the stent that was put in at that time.

As I said in the previous post, my sail's leech hem had come undone about the level of the spreaders. I took it the Waagmeester's Banks Sails where I bought the sail. He mended the sail. He found lots of little places where the thread was broken, but no where the thread was weak from UV damage. He summized that the sail was flogged a lot.

On to last Saturday, I went up the mast with Bill spotting me. I use ascenders and one of my jib sheets to go up the mast. This gives me control of where I want to be without loading the spotter with all the work. I found some bare threads at the spreaders. The spreaders are mounted to the mast with long through bolts. Each bolt had about 1/4 inch of threads sticking out. The rubbers at the ends of the spreaders were cracked, but relatively smooth. Next time I will have to replace them.

I went up to the top of the mast and inspected the head. Everything seems fine there. On the way down, though, I had to stop a couple of times to rest. I had not been up the mast for years and thought, "Wow, this is more strenuous than I thought." I got down and took off the gear and was really thirsty. So I went below to get a drink of water.

That's when the chest pains started. I took about a minute to realize these were heart pains. I told Bill, I was having a heart attack. Please call 911. I laid down and put me feet up. Bill came down below and got cushions under my legs. I asked for aspirin, then realized the 911 call had not been done. Bill was still trying to find the aspirin. I asked again to please call 911. We can get the aspirin after that. He did. I ended up giving him the address to the marina and our slip number. Meanwhile, I was starting to go into shock with cold sweats. Bill gave me an aspirin and then I directed him to go meet the EMT's. I could hear the siren.

Bill brought the EMT's and Firement down to the boat. They managed to get three of them in the cabin with me. They had a hard time connecting the 12 lead because I was so wet with sweat. They finally got my vitals and the EKG. Yep, I was having a heart attack. The only problem was to get me to the gurney. They gave me some nitro. That relieved the pain slightly. I ended up climbing out of the cabin and over the side of the boat and walked to the gurney and sat down. They did not strap me in, because one of the EMT's stated if we fell in for any reason I should not be strapped to something that does not float.

This all started about 11:30 AM. By 12:30 PM I was in the operating room. By 1:30 PM, I was in CCU. Very fast and efficient. Thanks, Good Samaritan and Dr's Schroeder and Rosenbaum.

So that is why we did not race this week. Maybe next.