Richard Currier, 53, called his mother-in law, June Lawler, early on a Sunday morning. He was feeling a little anxious and nauseated. But in less than an hour, he was on an ambulance pulling into Auburn Memorial Hospital.

“She said she would come sit with him,” said Anne Currier, Richard's wife, a licensed practical nurse who was on a home care case at the time.

“After just like a minute or two, he said ‘nevermind, I'm not going to make it. I'm having pain in my chest and it's going down my left arm,'” Anne said last week.

A number of uncommon things took place on July 19 to keep Richard Currier alive - from his being on the phone when his heart attack began so Lawler could call 911, to an AMH emergency room physician's willingness to ride with him on an ambulance transport.

Whether it was by luck or by will, the Curriers will have the chance to celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary on Aug. 24.

“It was meant to be,” Anne said. “The stars had to be aligned.”

A blood clot had caught in one of three stents that were placed four years earlier in Richard's right coronary artery. When Currier arrived at AMH, the attending emergency doctor Brian Brundage suspected this was the case.

As is protocol for patients at Auburn Memorial with heart attacks, Brundage and the ER team prepared Richard Currier to be transported to the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at University Hospital in Syracuse. But during the ambulance transport, while the vehicle with Anne in the front was at the corner of Standart and Fulton streets in Auburn, his heart stopped.

The ambulance sped back to the AMH emergency parking lot, where Brundage and paramedics worked to resuscitate Currier. After 45 minutes in the ER, his blood pressure and pulse were stabilized. Whether that would hold for the ride to Syracuse was another question.

Brundage said he called Hagop Isnar, the hospital's assistant director of the emergency department, to cover the patients in the ER. Brundage was going to ride along this time. That way, he said, he could work with the paramedic and respiratory therapist if something went awry again.

“I've only done that twice in 15 years,” Brundage said of riding in an emergency vehicle with a patient.

The extra hands were needed, it turned out. Currier arrested again, and the ambulance had to pull over on Interstate 690 so they could revive him.

Anne Currier was in the front passenger seat. She said she could see the Carrier Dome and University Hospital from where they were stopped.

At that point, Anne said, she was not a nurse. She was a wife.

“It was a very harrowing experience to sit there and watch a loved one go through that,” she said.

Even among all the chaos of the trip, Anne Currier said she remembers one thing.

“I cannot believe all the people who do not slow down or get out of the way of the ambulance,” she said. “It's really a matter of life and death.”

Richard made it to Upstate, where doctors used dissolving drugs to remove the clot. He was sitting up in bed with his family by 9 p.m. Today, he is fatigued but doing well.

Both Anne Currier and Brundage say this situation was an example of AMH's importance to the community.

“If there was any way to save his life, they were going to do it,” Anne said.

And if there wasn't a place to assess and stabilize the patient, and he instead had to endure the drive to another hospital, he might not have made it, Brundage said.

The fact that another doctor was willing and able to come in at the last minute to allow Brundage to ride along also shows the hospital team's commitment to patient care, he said.

“It's just good that we're here,” Brundage said.

Staff writer Christopher Caskey can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 282 or christopher.caskey@lee.net