A year ago, Joel King was working at Will Rogers Memorial Center during the Cowtown Marathon when he had a “widow maker” heart attack, a 100-percent block of the left anterior descending artery that carries a high rate of mortality.
Later this month, the 57-year-old will walk the Cowtown 5K to commemorate a year since the incident. The survivor and seven siblings helped Medical City Fort Worth kick off Heart Month on Thursday.
King had been working at Will Rogers during the morning of the marathon because his family business, Metro Golf Cars, had provided carts in the area a day earlier, according to a story in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. A doctor told the Star-Telegram that if he hadn’t found a nearby tent associated with the marathon after having chest pains, “he’d be dead.”
Medical City Fort Worth physicians on site at the marathon treated King on site before sending him to the 320-bed facility for treatment.
King and his siblings will walk in the Cowtown 5K on February 24.
