By: Stuart Dyson, KOB Eyewitness News 4
A balloon pilot from Brazil is thankful to be alive after suffering a heart attack during the Balloon Fiesta. Tuesday, he got the chance to thank the New Mexicans who came to his rescue and saved his life.
For everybody – but especially for Antonio Marquez – this was a type of hear blockage that could have caused his death within a matter of minutes: medics call it "the widow-maker."
If you're going to have a visit from the widow-maker, the Ballon Fiesta in Albuquerque is not the worst place for it to happen.
Marquez joined Mayor Richard Berry honoring the fiesta zebras who responded instantly, the fire department paramedics who appeared within moments, the Lovelace first-aid station doctors and nurses, the Albuquerque Ambulance crew that rushed him off the field and the team at Heart Hospital of New Mexico that performed the surgery.
Marquez gave thanks through a translator.
"He believes that if they weren't here and if they hadn't taken care of him so quickly, he wouldn't be here today," Marquez said through a translator. "In a few words, thank you from the bottom of my heart!"
"I think it was a great collaboration of all the systems – to have a great outcome," said paramedic Jeremy Pecotte. "It gives me chills to know that we were able to do that as a collective group."
Marquez was released after a few days at Heart Hospital. He plans to return to Brazil later this month.
All of the fire department EMS vehicles at Balloon Fiesta now have advanced life support capability on board and there is now an Albuquerque ambulance staged at the fiesta every year.
View the original story here.