Fire chief suffers heart attack after rescuing crash victim in Alaska

FAIRBANKS, Alaska -- Somewhere between an ambulance ride for chest pain and a helicopter ride for heart surgery, Nenana Fire Chief Joe Forness found time to help take a car crash victim to the hospital. Forness called 911 on Nov. 22 after he experienced chest pain, but about 10 minutes into the ambulance ride to Fairbanks, Forness said his symptoms disappeared.

It was around the same time that the ambulance passed a car wreck with a victim in need of immediate attention, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.

"As we're laying there, talking about what it could be, the driver says, 'Hey, some folks are in a ditch here. Let's stop and see if they need help,'" Forness said.

So Forness jumped off the gurney, ripped some electrodes off his chest and did what he's done since 1990.

"I'm thinking, 'Well, I have no pain right now, I'm on my way to the hospital anyway. I might as well help this person who needs more help than me right now,'" Forness said.

The crash was between a vehicle and a snowmobile, just north of Nenana. One person was in serious condition.

The crew arrived in Fairbanks with the victim and transferred him to the emergency room staff — and then it happened. Forness suffered a heart attack at the hospital.

"I had major pain in the arm and chest," he said. "That felt like a heart attack."

Forness was airlifted to Anchorage, where he underwent quintuple coronary artery bypass surgery.

When he woke up, he quizzed his cardiologist about the early symptoms he displayed.

The doctor said the symptoms were due to a blocked artery undergoing a spasm.

"When it would spasm, I would have pain," he said. "When it would stop, I would stop having pain."

Forness isn't allowed to return to work for at least 60 days, and when he does go back, he'll be on limited duty.

"No bench-pressing cars," he said.

Forness was hospitalized for a week. His rehab includes going on walks to rebuild his heart muscle.

"It's kind of one of those things, a lot of things had to fall in line perfectly in order for that to happen," Forness said. "I guess I'm a lucky person."