VERGENNES TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Jim Ormiston is happy to be back playing golf.
The Lowell man was reunited this week with the friends and strangers who helped him during a heart attack four weeks ago.
“I had some guardian angels looking over me,” Ormiston said.
On July 24, Jim was getting ready for his golf league at Arrowhead Golf north of Lowell when the unexpected happened. “My partner came up and I came up to the parking lot to pick him up, and the next thing I know I’m passed out in my cart,” Ormiston told FOX 17.
Braeleigh McCoy and Jerman Juarerz, two strangers who work as as nurse techs in Grand Rapids, along with friends of Ormiston’s, jumped into action.
“We realized something was wrong when Jim became unresponsive,” Braeleigh McCoy recalls. "So we stopped the car, got out. Jerman checked for a pulse and saw that there was no pulse, so he was not breathing at that point.”
They ended up doing CPR on Jim until EMTs got there with a defibrillator. Now. a month later and fully recovered, Jim Ormiston wants to give back
“We’re having a fundraiser to purchase a defibrillator for the clubhouse, so if anything like this happens again, they’re prepared for an event like that,” Ormiston said.
And as he works to help others, Jim says he’s just thankful he can play another round.
“They genuinely saved me,” says Ormiston
The event is called Heart Start and starts at noon Sunday, August 23. The participation fee covers the greens fee, a cart, and a pulled pork dinner. Dedication of the AED to the course is expected to be at 5:45 p.m. More information can be found at the course’s fundraiser page.
