Benician, aided by paramedics, beats ‘widowmaker’ heart attack

By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter

The sky is bluer, the grass is greener, Mike Colacito said, and little things don’t aggravate him the way they once did.

The Benicia resident is looking forward to the holidays that he might have missed without the help of emergency responders from the Benicia Fire Department.Colacito, 65, survived a massive heart attack Nov. 8 — one so severe, doctors call it “the widowmaker” because it has no warning symptoms.

Colacito’s bloodwork — his cholesterol and triglycerides — always had normal results. He’s active, too. He and his wife, Carla, visited Europe last September, “and I walked all around there.” Retired after working 33 years in Chevron’s accounting department, Colacito has been working out at Benicia Health and Fitness, 1150 West Seventh St., three days a week and golfing at least twice a week. And he did his own yard work.

He even had played 18 holes of golf the previous day. He was at the fitness club and working out on the equipment Nov. 8 when he began experiencing chest pains. “I stopped, and I went to the desk, and I told them, ‘Call 9-1-1,’” he said. The employees made the call and had Colacito sit for the few minutes it took for an ambulance and the Benicia Fire Department to arrive.

“We were first on the scene,” said Jimmy Pierson, Medic Ambulance Service’s vice president of operations. Company paramedic Nicole Bonn and emergency medical technician Pamela Watson went to work on Colacito.

“Initially, he was alert and talking,” Pierson said. But when Colacito was loaded into the ambulance, “he went into critical.” By that time, Benicia Fire Department had arrived, including paramedic Wayne Fraser, who also went to work. “In critical cases, we work as a team,” Pierson said.   “I started to go south,” Colacito said. His vision took on purple hues, and he saw flashes of light like fireworks. “Then I coded out.”

Bonn shocked him with a defibrillator. The paramedics then gave him intravenous fluids and epinephrine in hopes of reviving him. Fraser and Bonn worked together during the ambulance ride to keep Colacito alive.

In the meantime Carla had been called to the fitness club, and when she arrived the ambulance already was on its way. She followed.

Colacito initially was stabilized at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Vallejo before being sent to Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa, where he could receive heart catheterization, angioplasty and two stints.

“I had 99 percent blockage,” he said. “This was a pretty big surprise.”

When Carla arrived at the hospital, she was pulled aside and taken to a separate room, where the doctors explained the seriousness of her husband’s condition.

Most of what Colacito describes when he talks about the heart attack are what others have told him. He has little recollection himself.

In fact, once the purple and fireworks faded, the next thing Colacito remembers is seeing the faces of his family and hearing them talk all at the same time.

He believes his first words after regaining consciousness were, “One question at a time!” When he woke up Nov. 12, he was able to tell doctors his name and that of his wife. He was in intensive care for seven days, and for 48 hours was subjected to a therapy involving bringing his body temperature down to 92.7 degrees for 48 hours. The hypothermia “takes a load off” the body as it tries to heal itself, he said.

He also spent time on an aortic pump, also to relieve his stricken heart. Since then, it’s been a step-by-step progress toward recovery. “I’m slowly getting back,” he said.  Colacito has been participating in Kaiser’s heart fitness program and has been cleared to go to the gym, where he now walks a treadmill to bring his heart rate up to 100 beats a minute. “That’s a good effort,” he said. He’s able to do light yard work, too.

While he’s had a healthy lifestyle and he and Carla have been careful about what they eat, Colacito said he has learned more about nutrition and has had to adapt to new restrictions imposed by his doctors.  He said Carla has become “my low-sodium, low-fat chef.” While the couple knew to keep their fat intake at a reasonable limit, they have learned more about sodium. “You’ve got to watch it,” he said. “Sodium will kill you.”  He should have no more than 1,500 milligrams of sodium a day. The average diet contains 5,000. One slice of bread has 250, “so if you have two slices of toast at breakfast, that’s a third (of daily intake),” he said. He’s discovered that canned and processed food “is loaded with sodium.” Canned tomatoes usually have 500 milligrams. And “bottled sauces are out,” Colacito said.

Instead, he and Carla have switched to fresh foods. They don’t spoon spaghetti sauce from a jar; they make it from fresh tomatoes. They use low-sodium spreads instead of mayonnaise, and choose lean ground beef for hamburgers. “It’s a matter of education. You must read labels,” he said.

He and Carla have visited the Benicia Fire Department, particularly to meet with Fraser. “It’s a rare success story,” Capt. Todd Matthews said.

This week, the Carlocitos visited Medic Ambulance Service to meet Watson and Bonn. Mike Colacito was told employees rarely learn what happens to those they carry.

“It was a once-in-a-lifetime call,” Pierson said. “This is a glowing definition of a ‘field save.’ It doesn’t happen every day.” “They got teary-eyed,” Colacito said of the two women.  He has since learned that what saved him not only was his strong physical condition, but also his realization that he was in trouble.

“I recognized the symptoms, and I asked for help. I didn’t say it’s indigestion, or this won’t happen to me. I was quite emphatic!”  Meanwhile, his heroes are glad to learn he has survived the type of heart attack that has earned such a grim nickname from doctors. It’s a rarity, he later learned.

“Only five to ten percent make it,” Colacito said. “I’m feeling blessed.”