Man suffers heart attack while helping Haiti

MIAMI (WSVN) -- A missionary was heartbroken by the images out of Haiti, but when he went there to help, it was his own heart that would be in trouble. Now, he is thanking a group of South Florida doctors for saving his life.

"The toughest thing I ever did was tell the person next to me that I think I'm having a heart attack," said Harold Anderson.

In fact, Anderson, 61, was having a heart attack. Anderson and about a dozen people from his church in Georgia were on a mission to the Dominican Republic and Haiti. They had just arrived in Port-Au-Prince to deliver supplies. "We unloaded the trucks, met the families we were going to work with, gave out the tarps. It was very hot, it was about 1 in the afternoon," said Anderson. "I started feeling tightness in my chest, pressure and a tingling in my arm."

Getting to the nearest medical facility was not easy for Anderson. "They wanted to find a hospital, but we don't have a 911 system there, so the first place we went was a clinic. It really wasn't capable of taking care of a cardiac heart attack, so we found another clinic," he said.

But what that clinic was capable of was starting Anderson off on the right medication. "They knew what I needed and said we really need to evacuate you out. We don't have the capability to do anything for a heart attack here. They had the drugs, and they started me on the drugs. Samples. I felt bad because I thought I was taking the resources from this hospital that was hurting already," said Anderson.

After two failed attempts, doctors took Anderson to another facility. "That's when they said, 'We'll take you down to the airport.' They call it the Miami Share," said Anderson.

Anderson was taken to the University of Miami's Project Medishare Hospital, which is probably the biggest and best medical clinic in Haiti since the devastating earthquake in January. "We got down there and went into the tent and got there about 5 and stayed about 11, until I got a flight out," said Anderson.

The flight out took him back to his family, something Anderson knows may not have been possible if not for Project Medishare. "I realize that there are a lot of other people there doing the same thing, and they were able to help me, probably more than I was able to help them, so I'm thankful for the Medishare program," he said. "It's the right people, at the right time, at the right place that saved my life."

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