Chesco man meets responders who saved his life

Most of what Glenn McClintock knows about the day his heart stopped, he pieced together later.

But what the 62-year-old grandfather knows for sure is that first responders saved his life with CPR and at least five shocks from an automated external defibrillator before he arrived at the hospital.

McClintock met the first responders Wednesday for the first time since they helped save his life in October.

"It's important to encourage those people and thank those people for their service to others who they don't even know," said McClintock, of Glenmoore.

He was in Coatesville on Wednesday afternoon when Brandywine Health Foundation officials marked American Heart Month by giving new automated external defibrillators to five schools in the Coatesville Area School District and nine police departments that serve the Coatesville area.

"We thought it was important that as many police cars and schools as possible in the area have the equipment to respond" to emergencies, said Frances Sheehan, head of the Brandywine Health Foundation.

The Caln Township Police Department was one of the recipients. Officer Nathan Miller, a nine-year member of the force, said he will never forget Oct. 28, 2014.

"Glenn was the first time I was able to be part of a successful CPR attempt," Miller said.

When he arrived at the scene that afternoon, Miller found McClintock seemingly lifeless in the driveway of a house in Thorndale.

McClintock, a landscape designer, had been helping a friend with a roofing job. He got thirsty and climbed down from the roof.

Then, McClintock, who appeared healthy but had a family history of heart disease, told his coworkers he was having chest pains. He collapsed.

Miller was fewer than two miles away when he got word of a cardiac arrest. McClintock's fellow workers stood on street corners waving Miller on as he raced to the scene.

Miller took over for McClintock's coworkers, who had been performing CPR.

Soon, Raymond Stackhouse - president of the Chester County Fire Chiefs Association and superintendent of life safety in Caln - arrived.

He shocked McClintock at least three times with the defibrillator as he lay in the driveway.

On the way to the hospital, McClintock was shocked at least twice more in the ambulance. He was shocked at least two more times at the hospital.

McClintock now goes to physical rehabilitation three times per week, but has no heart or brain damage.

"I just want to be an encourager to not only the people who are trained in this but to the general public, to have an awareness of these kinds of things," McClintock said, "because it does make a difference."