By all accounts, Sunday May 19th started out like any other day.
Tom Rouse said blue skies brought him to Northridge Country Club.
“The guys I was playing with said I was playing OK,” Rouse said. “I don’t remember ever being out of breath like that.”
The 77-year-old avid golfer has been playing the course twice a week for many years.
Each time, you walk the course instead of driving a cart.
“There’s a big elevation change going from the 16th hole to the 17th hole, but I don’t remember it being particularly bad or worse than normal,” Rouse recalled. “I was pretty close.”
He remembers being put into a group to play with the other members Steve, Howard and Pat.
Much of what happened is still unclear to Rouse, but he said the rest of his group helped him fill in the blanks after teeing off on the 17th hole.
“They turned around and said, ‘Where’s Tom?’ and then they saw Kurt and they saw me on the ground,” he said.
Rouse said his friend Steve came to him first, followed by Howard and Pat.
“They said he had no pulse, no breathing, his face was blue … he was dead,” Rouse said.
The group immediately called 911 and requested an ambulance.
In a fateful coincidence, Dr. Joe Bumgarner, a cardiologist at UNC Rex, had just parked his car in his driveway, not far from the course.
“It was just a quiet Sunday afternoon, and my 5-year-old daughter was with me,” Bumgarner said. “I actually went to the car wash to get my truck washed, and it was unusually busy.”
The doctor said that if he had been alone, he would have simply waited in line, even if it took hours, but his youngest son saw the line and said he wanted to go home, so he agreed.
“I saw a police car coming up behind me at a high speed and I was totally shocked. I was concerned something was wrong with her so I started to try and get her inside the house,” Bumgarner said.
He said he then heard his neighbors screaming for help.
“She said someone collapsed on the golf course,” he said.
A neighbor told him to run in front of her house to get to the fairway faster.
When Bumgarner arrived on the scene, he found Rouse lying face-up on the grass. One member of the group had already begun CPR, and a cardiologist intervened instead.
“I just got off and started helping as quickly as I could,” he said.
Bumgarner said the group remembered seeing an AED in the club’s pro shop and had already asked staff to bring one.
“That decision truly saved Tom’s life,” Bumgarner said. “It’s the only way you can save a life when your heart has stopped or is in arrhythmia.”
Northridge Country Club officials said the AED used that day was one of 14 installed on the roughly 400-acre property.
Management told WRAL News that the devices are also installed on several ranger golf carts that patrol the grounds in case a medical emergency occurs away from the main clubhouse.
Bumgarner said the AED bought valuable time before emergency responders could get Ruth to the hospital.
As Rouse was on his way to the hospital, Bumgarner called a colleague to tell him the results of Rouse’s EKG, which revealed he was suffering a heart attack.
“We were able to do a full diagnostic right here at the fairway,” Bumgarner said, “and we were able to call in my partner, Dr. Wu, who is in the cath lab at the hospital.”
Wu determined that the largest artery in Rouse’s heart was 99 percent blocked and rushed him into surgery.
“This is sometimes called a ‘widowmaker,’ and it’s a deadly type of blockage,” Bumgarner explained.
Ruth’s first memory after that was waking up in hospital three days later and being shocked to hear she had had a heart attack, but with no symptoms.
“There was nothing before the round, there was nothing the week before the round … nothing,” Rouse said.
He continued, “I’ve done everything I thought I could do to prevent a heart attack — I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I’m at a healthy weight, I eat right, I’m active — but you can’t keep up with genes.”
Because of his experience, despite being in good health, Rouse said he hopes other businesses make AEDs readily available.
Ruth said he and his wife also signed up for CPR and AED training.
Rouse’s doctor gave him a wearable defibrillator, known as a LifeVest, in case he has another heart attack, and he said he feels safe knowing the device will automatically deliver a life-saving shock when needed.
“I can’t speak highly enough of any hospital for what they’ve done for me,” Rouse said. “I’m talking, I’m walking, I’m doing everything.”
The golfer said he has not yet been cleared to return to play but is hopeful of hearing good news at his next appointment.
And when he returned, he joked that he had a pretty good excuse for a mulligan.
