Thomas Thorburn sipped the last of his minestrone soup just before it happened.
As he sat at the kitchen table, a heart attack gripped his 70-year-old body. It was sudden and painless. Mr. Thorburn fell off his chair and stopped breathing.
“I dropped dead on my kitchen floor,” he said.
His frightened wife called 911, and within 3 minutes Police Chief Otto F. Rhode Jr. and Officer Duncan Baum were there. They performed CPR and used a defibrillator from a police cruiser to try to revive him.
“On the third shock, he took a breath,” Chief Rhode said.
The Rescue Squad soon arrived and took Mr. Thorburn to a hospital.
The next thing he remembers is waking up at UMass Memorial Medical Center — University Campus in Worcester, about three days after the May 14 heart attack.
“They brought me back,” Mr. Thorburn said of the Berlin emergency workers. “I’m one lucky guy.”
Mr. Thorburn, who has a history of heart problems, is also a former chief of the Rescue Squad.
He and his wife, Carol, say health problems are just a part of life that must be dealt with. But Mr. Thorburn is taking one preventive step: “I’m never eating soup again,” he said with a chuckle.
