For decades, whenever Harwinton residents called 9-1-1 for a medical emergency, the chances were excellent that their neighbor – Harwinton EMS ambulance chief/EMT Bob Collins – would respond.

Until that January day when Bob collapsed – and the tables were turned.

 

“I was feeling fine,” Bob recalled. “Next thing I know it was Wednesday? Thursday? And I was at Hartford Hospital.”

At first, his wife, Jean, also an emergency medical technician (EMT) thought he’d fallen asleep.

“I went to wake him up for dinner,” Jean said. Then I was screaming at him, but he wasn’t responding at all.”

Jean called 9-1-1 to alert local emergency responders to the medical emergency happening in their home. After hanging up the phone, her EMT training kicked in, and she began to administer CPR.

“Your training takes over,” Jean said. “You just do it, and think back on it later.”

And just like that, Bob was now on the receiving end of emergency care. It was not unlike the medical care he had delivered hundreds of time to the residents of Harwinton through the years.

When their colleagues from Harwinton Ambulance arrived, they took over the critical process of helping their neighbor, friend and – in at least one instance, mentor – get to the right place to treat him. Every minute was critical. They worked diligently. They stabilized him, then transported him – by ambulance, of course – to Charlotte Hungerford Hospital in nearby Torrington. Doctors there realized that Bob would need a higher level of care, and called in their partners from LIFE STAR to transport him to Hartford Hospital.

Once at Hartford Hospital – one of the state’s only Trauma Level I hospitals – Bob would be placed in an medically induced coma to help save his life.

Eventually, he would have triple bypass surgery. A pacemaker was also implanted.

But none of that would have happened if local EMS providers were not there to answer that 9-1-1 call.

“People (who work and volunteer) in EMS give up a lot of time,” Bob said. “God bless all those people.”

Learn more about the partnership between Hartford HealthCare and local EMS providers here.