By Ryan Teague Beckwith
The News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina)
Copyright 2006 The News and Observer
A visit to Bojangles saved Ben Blalock’s life.
While heading out to vacation at the beach the Saturday before last, the Caswell County farmer stopped for breakfast at the fast-food restaurant in Shalotte.
When he collapsed inside the restaurant from a heart attack, two off-duty Wake County paramedics jumped to action.
Larry and Glenn Barham, brothers who have each worked for Wake for more than 25 years, said they performed CPR on Blalock for nearly a half-hour.
“They just kept him alive,” said Blalock’s son, Keith. “There’s absolutely no doubt about it.”
The Barhams were at the Bojangles on their way home from a weeklong family vacation at Ocean Isle Beach.
Their family also pitched in to the rescue effort. Glenn’s son, David, a high school senior, called 911 on his cell phone. Larry’s 15-year-old daughter, Paige, got a pocket mask used in mouth-to-mouth resuscitation from the car.
At the same time, their mother, Lois, consoled Blalock’s wife.
An ambulance arrived and took Blalock to the local hospital. He is now being treated at Duke University Medical Center’s intensive care unit in Durham.
Keith Blalock said his father, a soybean farmer from Prospect Hill, is awake and even shaving himself.
Doctors credit the constant chest compressions, which kept oxygen flowing to Blalock’s brain during the heart attack, with saving his life and preventing serious brain damage.
Larry Barham said he and his brother were glad to be there at the right time. Their father, David, died in 2002 after having a heart attack in a barn when no one was around.
Like Blalock, he was also 73.
“It was sort of like my father’s death, revisited,” said Barham.