NORTH TEXAS – A three-time heart surgery patient is going from counting his days to making his days count by volunteering at the hospital that saved his life three times. Joe Wells had a “widow maker,” which is considered among the deadliest types of heart attacks.
From afar, 67-year-old Wells looks like any other volunteer at Baylor Scott & White Heart and Vascular Hospital in Fort Worth with lots of time on his side.
“You feel like you have to start giving back a little bit,” Wells said.
Wells, a fitness enthusiast, felt chest pain after a two-hour workout in 2016.
“Thirty minutes later, I was in the emergency room at Baylor Scott & White, and they were repairing a 100% blockage of my right coronary artery,” Wells said.
He bounced back after two heart surgeries with stents and ran the Cowtown half-marathon in his 60s.
“I beat that record by about five minutes in 2018, and that was a record that I set back in my 40s,” Wells said.