The day started out normally enough May 8 for Robert E. Lee Morgan III, a U.S. Army veteran and former commander of the Harry White Wilmer American Legion Post 82 in La Plata.
Courtney Thompson (left) & Robert E Lee Morgan III the Survivor
As he has done for the past 10 years or so, he left his La Plata home last month to go to La Plata High School to present awards to cadets serving with the U.S. Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps.
“He was coming up to the podium to present an award to one of the cadets,” Chief Petty Officer Courtney Thompson, 18, said. “He had a cane and he took four or five steps and then he started to stumble backwards clutching his chest. Gunny [Bailey] grabbed him and Mr. Exline and Bridget Higgs started CPR. I tried to get him to talk to me.”
Morgan, 68, had suffered a heart attack.
.Thompson, retired firefighter and emergency medical technician Tony Exline, Gunnery Sgt. Clive Bailey and Bridgett Higgs, an emergency department nurse at Civista Medical Center in La Plata, rushed to Morgan’s side to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation and then use an automatic exterior defibrillator to jumpstart his heart, said retired U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Ron Fry, the senior naval science instructor at the high school.
“I wanted to make sure that he was still responding,” Thompson said. “He stopped breathing and then they began CPR. They brought him back for a couple of minutes and then he went away again. The defibrillator brought him back and he started talking.”
“The thing that I was most proud of is that everyone remained calm,” Evelyn Arnold, the school’s principal, said. “It just worked like clockwork. Everything went together perfectly … I was proud of Courtney and all of the kids.”
Morgan said he only remembers starting to walk up to the podium and the next thing he knew he woke up at Civista Medical Center. From there he was flown to Washington Hospital Center where doctors found an artery leading to his heart that was 95 percent blocked.
“I’m very, very grateful to everyone who helped me,” he said, adding the blocked artery was taken care of and now he is doing fine. “I’m glad that they had a defibrillator at the school.”
Morgan’s wife, Eileen, said she is grateful to all of the folks who reacted quickly to help her husband, who is disabled because of a serious tractor-trailer accident in 1970.
“Thank you so much because he wouldn’t be here if not for you,” she said. “He’s a very lucky person.”
