Do you have a Heart for Mercy?
One moment, Gerald Kerbaugh was tending to the flowers in his garden. The next, he was on a table in Mercy General Hospital's Cardiac Catheterization Lab having a small balloon inflated in one of his arteries to restore the flow of blood and oxygen to his heart.
"I was stepping from my flower bed to the lawn in my back yard when I felt pain in the middle of my chest," says Kerbaugh. "The pain and pressure increased and I knew I was having a heart attack."
He made it into his apartment unit near 25th and L Streets, took two aspirin and dialed 9-1-1.
"I remember the emergency personnel came in a red ambulance. I have insurance through Kaiser so I told them to take me there," he says. The EMS crew commented on the traffic they would encounter by doing so and knew that Kerbaugh may end up back at Mercy General anyway if he needed interventional cardiac care. (Mercy General Hospital provides all such cardiac services for Kaiser patients in Sacramento, including interventional Cath Lab procedures and heart surgery.) Since every second counts in a heart-related emergency, the EMS crew brought him directly to Mercy General.
"I barely remember the Emergency Department because everything went so fast," Kerbaugh says. In all, just 20 minutes passed from the time he entered the hospital's ED to the time the balloon was inflated in his artery.
Gerald's story is similar to hundreds of others cared for at Mercy General Hospital and is a success story we want to ensure repeats itself for generations to come. Completion of the Alex G. Spanos Heart Center and replacement hospital building will help us make sure that it does.
If you have a heart for Mercy, we'd love to hear from you. Please
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your story.
Please consider making a contribution
Mercy Foundation is working to raise $40 million to help fund the new Alex G. Spanos Heart & Vascular Center. Your support will help turn this dream of a new, technologically advanced center into a reality for residents of northern California and beyond.
For more information about the Alex G. Spanos Heart & Vascular Center Capital Campaign or to make an online donation, visit the Mercy Foundation Web site, or call Joe Orsak, Chief Philanthropy Officer at (916) 453-4698.
