LEBANON, Mo. — Twenty-eight years after Doug Graves fell into a coma after suffering a brain aneurysm, two EMTs helped the former pilot make it back to the airport for a visit.
KY3 reported that in 1990, Graves suffered a medical emergency while at the Floyd W. Jones airport.
“One of the guys who worked down there came up and said Doug has just passed out. We don’t know what is wrong with him,” Don Claxton, a pilot friend of Doug’s, said.
Following the diagnosis of a brain aneurysm, Graves was in a coma for a month before being taken off the ventilator, and was expected to pass away.
Twenty-eight years later, however, Graves is living in a nursing home, still as attached to planes as ever. His wife, Jan, tries to take him to visit the airport as often as she can, but no longer felt she could do it alone. The nursing director made a call to Cox Emergency Medical Services to see if someone could help.
“She contacted us and was asking if we had anything in regards to a Make-A-Wish foundation for an elderly patient. Doug the patient is somebody we knew very well, as far as the ambulance goes. When we found out it was him, we definitely wanted to help out,” paramedic Kevin Davis said.
Two EMTs volunteered to get Doug safely to the airport and to the areas he wanted to visit.
“You become attached to these patients, we really enjoy meeting their family and being a part of their life,” Davis said.