When Michael Reesick, Stores Attendant, Misericordia Community Hospital, began to feel pangs in his heart as he was walking across the hospital parking lot, it didn’t occur to him to go to the emergency room—or that in just a few short days, his co-workers would save his life.

Michael had suffered a heart attack. Not realizing it at the time, he continued his regular routine for nearly a week while managing symptoms that included severe chest pain and tingling sensations in his arms.

Eventually, on the advice of the nursing staff on a unit he delivered supplies to, Michael went to the Misericordia emergency department.

“I told the nurses a hypothetical situation about a guy who was having the symptoms I was having, and asked what he should do. They told me in no uncertain terms to go to emergency.” 

It was a good thing Michael did.

Misericordia staff immediately got him into the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute where they found a 90 per cent blockage in Michael’s heart and did an angioplasty. “I was very lucky,” remarks the 12-year employee of Covenant Health, noting that in these situations, “you turn yourself over to whatever higher power you subscribe to.”

He explains the feeling he had while lying in a hospital bed in the same unit he had just delivered medical supplies to a week prior. From this new perspective, he describes the Coronary Care unit at the Misericordia as “an island of tranquillity, a place of healing. Their concern is genuine and their abilities stand right out.”