WORCESTER – Wearing a crisp blue suit with a dress shirt unbuttoned at the collar and nodding his head to an audible cadence of “one, two, three, four” that filled a conference room, it appeared life is good for Andy MacIsaac.
The 55-year-old Shrewsbury resident had his wife, Tricia, seated to his right, and slew of emergency responders to his left at UMass Memorial Medical Center — University Campus. Other UMass officials, including doctors wearing white lab coats, were in the room.
The focus of Thursday’s gathering was MacIsaac’s sudden cardiac arrest in July, and how this group of emergency responders and doctors sprang into action to save his life. Sudden cardiac arrest is not a heart attack, which occurs when blood flow is blocked. Arrest is an electrical current malfunction that causes an irregular heartbeat.
When the media event began, a hospital official played the 911 call that Tricia made July 2 from their Shrewsbury home, seconds after her husband collapsed in their kitchen. The voice of the dispatcher who took Tricia’s 911 call, John Cappe, could be heard filling the room.