Alaska state Rep. Ron Gillham suffers heart attack, returns to Capitol after treatment

JUNEAU — Rep. Ron Gillham, R-Kenai, suffered a major heart attack last week in Juneau and returned to Alaska’s state Capitol on Tuesday after being medevaced to Anchorage.

Gillham’s absence from the state Capitol starting Thursday was initially attributed to a “personal emergency,” by a member of his staff. Kenai radio station KSRM-AM reported the heart attack Monday.

“The doctor said I was within 15 minutes of not making it,” Gillham said in a brief interview Tuesday.

He said he now feels well, and that doctors have advised him that it’s safe to return to work.

“The treatment was amazing,” he said of the care he received in Juneau and Anchorage. “They’ve done a wonderful job.

Gillham said he felt ill Wednesday night but because he felt pain near his stomach, he attributed it to a combination of overeating and a dose of vitamin pills. When he broke out in sweat, his wife told him to get dressed, and they headed to Juneau’s Bartlett Regional Hospital.

Once there, a doctor diagnosed him with a heart attack, pinpointing a blood vessel toward the bottom of his heart. The doctor administered clot-busting medication, Gillham said.

He and his wife have different memories of that night, “but I remember talking to my kids on the phone because she thought that was the last time they’re going to talk to their dad.”

By the time a medical airlift was clear for takeoff from Juneau, the medicine had begun working.

“When that stuff kicked in and broke that clot loose and my heart rate jumped up ... (the doctor) turned around, walked away. And I heard him say, ‘We’re winning.’ And at that point, I felt all right,” Gillham said.

He said he doesn’t recall being afraid or having much pain in the process. When he arrived in Anchorage, he was hurried to an operating table and had a stent inserted into his heart through a vein in his wrist, which is still bruised from the procedure.

Gillham doesn’t drink alcohol and doesn’t smoke, but he does have a family history of heart attacks and said he is genetically predisposed.

The big lesson he learned from the experience?

“Listen to your body,” he said, particularly when it’s telling you that something is wrong.

“If you haven’t been to the doctor, go the doctor. Have it checked out, because it could save your life,” he said. “I would have never thought that this would ever happen to me. Never.”