PORTLAND, Maine — Alan Tate remembers caring for his mom, who had cancer when he was a young boy. Since then, he's been working as a firefighter and EMT in New Hampshire, but he hasn't been back on the job since the night of April 23.
"I remember squeezing a bag three or four times and then I don't remember a thing . . . I have a flash of the ambulance, a flash of the ER, a little bit of the helicopter, and what I really remember is the ICU at Maine Med," Tate said.
He was going into cardiac arrest while treating a patient for the same thing. Thus, he also became a patient in the back of a second ambulance, instead of being in the front seat of his own.
"To look up from the stretcher when you're usually looking down is an interesting experience," Tate said.
He wasn't alone, but with people he calls family.
"You know they saved my life, and it's almost as if you're closer to them than you're real family," he said.
"It's tough... it's tough when it's one of your own," North Conway Fire Chief Pat Peerce said.
Tate was transported from North Conway, NH, to Maine Medical Center in Portland for surgery.
"I can imagine what the ED staff was going through with two cardiac arrests in the ED at the same time," Tate said.
"The entire team has given back to the community by getting someone like Alan back to health," Dr. Walter DeNino said.
Not just the team at Maine Med, but Alan's team. A team, and a family, he can't wait to get back to.
Tate told NEWS CENTER Maine he is expected to be back at work on Aug. 20.