WATERMARK

This is from Dolores Flanagan of San Francisco [and The Well] who has given me her kind permission to post it here:

when i found out my brother Michael, that’s James Michael Flanagan of
Boston, Massachusetts, lately of San Clemente, California, had suffered a
heart attack at the end of a distance run, a regular little 6 mile run, 52
year old healthy guy-  it was a shock and it didn’t make any sense, really.
he was in vegas, on business, and got back to his car and it hit him out of
nowhere, and it was big.  Someone was right there and saw the instant it
hit.  He only took the time to ask Michael if he was alright, and when
Michael said, yeah, it’s just gas; the guy said no it’s not, your color is
terrible, we don’t have time to wait for 911, get in my car now, i know
right where to go and we’re going.  Michael got right in.

The guy called the hospital, which was just five minutes away, got the ER,
said "i am in my car headed to you and will be arriving in four minutes with
a witnessed heart attack, be ready to receive him." and they were.  outside
the doors of the ER, with a gurney, oxygen, monitor, portable defib, doctors
and nurses, and they bypassed the ER and took him straight to the cardiac
cath lab, where they were also waiting for him.

i found out the next morning.  the cardiac cath procedures didn’t work, he
needed open heart surgery, and i made it there before that.  he did great.
an *amazing* surgeon.

but what is the most amazing thing in the story is the guy.

when michael called me, to tell me this had happened, and that he was in the
hospital and how he got there, and that he was waiting to recover from the
hemorrhage (4 unit bleed) he’d had during the angioplasties so he could
undergo open heart, I got together just a few of the photographs he’s sent
over the years, as he’s traveled everywhere on earth, just about, every
country, visiting every UNESCO World Heritage Site he could get to, hundreds
of them-  I took a few of them and put them in an email asking my friends
and his to keep him in their thoughts.

Just about all of those thousands and thousands of air miles over the years
were flown on UAL.

Who was it that was the quick thinking, life-saving passerby guy in Las
Vegas, that saved the life of James Michael Flanagan?  He didn’t stick
around, or leave his name, we didn’t know.   but tonight Michael got to talk
to him, and this fellow’s an Irishman, and he’s a UAL pilot.

Michael’s met his real true guardian angel, and he’s an Irishman with real
wings.

thank you, thank you, thank you, Irish UAL guy, thank you thank you thank
you, for saving my brother’s life.

Later, she came back to tell us:

the guy we’ve been referring to for the last three weeks, since the day this
happened, as ‘the guy,’ ‘passerby-guy,’ and ‘guy,’ —  it’s great to know
his name now.  which is…   wait for it …

Guy.

Thank you to all the Guys in the world who are there for us and our loved ones when we need them.

UPDATE 26 December 02005: Las Vegas SUN story