An Ellijay resident would not be here today if it wasn’t for first responders’ quick rescue efforts, after the grandfather of five suffered from cardiac arrest and a major heart attack in August.
His family and members of his church dropped off homemade cookies at fire stations over the weekend, as a token of their appreciation for all that they do.
Aug. 7 started out as any other workday for Donnie Bailey, 61, as he set out to a wreck along River Street to tow away a car.
After strapping down the vehicle to his rollback tow truck, getting into the driver’s seat and handing over the necessary paperwork to the officer working the scene, he slumped over the steering wheel. He was suffering from cardiac arrest.
“So that quick, he was gone,” his wife, Debra Bailey, recalled about that day.
When East Ellijay Officer Logan Bristol went to hand the paperwork back to Donnie and realized he was unresponsive, he rushed over to the firefighters still on the scene of the wreck. They were able to jolt him out of the truck and onto the ground to start CPR.
“[Bristol] told us that he’d never seen those men move so fast in his life to try to get to him,” Debra said. “He was in the right place, at the right time, with the right people.”
Captain Aaron Freeman and Sergeant Tim Allison with Gilmer County Fire and Rescue were able to revive him on the second shock of an AED.
“I don’t remember thinking, I just remember acting as we’re trained to do … We started CPR on him, and ultimately we were able to do CPR and deliver the fibrillation from the AED before the ambulance could arrive back on the scene,” Freeman explained.
During the ambulance ride and just before arriving at Northside Cherokee Hospital in Canton, Donnie had a massive, “widowmaker” heart attack. He doesn’t remember that ride to the hospital, but the EMTs said he kept saying, “don’t let me die, I have too many grandkids.”
He was taken straight to the cath lab where he underwent surgery and got three stents. For a while after the heart attack, he wasn’t sure if he was going to make it. Receiving CPR caused a lot of broken ribs that he is still recovering from.
“[The hospital said], ‘If you don’t crack or break a rib, you did not do CPR right,’ … and I think that Aaron Freeman broke every one he had,” Debra mentioned while smiling.
His voice heavy with emotion, Donnie admitted how much this has changed his life and damaged his health that was once “perfectly fine.” He can’t run around with his grandkids, ages ranging from almost 2 to 16, like he used to.
“[My grandson and I] will get to playing, and I have to tell him I need to take a break and rest,” he said while choking up. “He’ll say ‘what, is your heart sick again?’ That’s tough, when an 8-year-old says something like that.”
Donnie was able to graduate from cardiac rehab about two weeks ago, but his doctors told him there are some things from before the event that he will never be able to do again, like return to work full time.
“I’ve been told that I am blessed to still be here and I am fully, totally, but it’s still hard at times not to get depressed,” he tearfully noted. “But then I tell myself there’s people in the world that are in a wheelchair, there’s people that have lost their eyesight. Things like that keep me going because I know I can still wake up every morning and see the beauty that God’s made.”
The Bailey’s have been members of the Ellijay Church of Christ for 20 years now, and expressed how thankful they are for their support.
“You could not ask for a better church family,” he voiced. “There’s people there that have more problems than me, but they were putting their problems aside to help us.”
Around 25 members of the church baked and dropped off cookies to fire stations across the county on March 1, including Gilmer Fire and Rescue Station 1 and the Ellijay Fire Department, as a way to say ‘thank you’ for saving Donnie’s life, and so many like him.
“It’s always nice when we get things from the public to show appreciation for jobs that we do, especially in that situation, that was a special situation,” Freeman said.
Whenever Donnie drives through the intersection where he went into cardiac arrest, he thinks in his head, “this is where I died.” However, he’s quickly reminded how thankful he is to God, and to the first responders of Gilmer County that work day in and day out to save lives.
“If not for them, I wouldn’t be here,” he confidently said, wiping the tears from his eyes.