Bill Shue

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On Saturday, November 3rd Dad and Trudy were headed to Pueblo from Monte Vista for the weekend.  They had stopped in Alamosa for breakfast and Dad took his morning medications there with food.  Around Ft. Garland he said he felt a little dizzy, but the feeling quickly passed and he kept on driving.  Near the 'bottom' of LaVeta pass on the Walsenburg side, Dad passed out at the wheel.  Trudy says one minute he was talking and the next minute he was slumped over the wheel pulling the steering wheel to the left into oncoming traffic with his foot down on the accelerator.  She was able to wrench the steering wheel enough to get them off the road on the wrong side of the road and pull the emergency brake.  She immediately called 911.  Dad came to, said he didn't feel well and opened the car door to vomit.  He was sweating profusely at the time, and was somewhat slurring his speech.  Trudy was on the phone with 911 and they asked her to  try to see if he had had a stroke, but it didn't appear so.  


The ambulance arrived from Walsenburg and took him to the emergency room in Walsenburg.  There they gave him some Heparin and baby aspirin and may have run some other tests.  They then sent him on to Parkview Hospital in Pueblo.  While in Pueblo, I visited Dad and he was sitting up, talking, joking seemed fine. He wasn't hooked up to any medications, but did have a heart monitor on him.  His brother John and Trudy left around 6:30 to go get her some dinner.  He ate dinner and said he was tired and thought he'd take a nap, but that he also felt a little nauseated.  I got him a basin and an extra blanket and settled him in for the night, and went home to Colorado Springs.  Around 10pm Trudy got a call from the Hospital saying Dad had 'coded' and had to be resuscitated.  (She was staying at John and Lynda Shue's house for the night.)  John took Trudy back to the hospital where they said Dad had experienced a heart attack.  They placed a stent and also put him on an artificial heart pump called an Impella device and the decision to transport him to UCHealth University of Denver Hospital in Aurora was made.  He was transported Sunday morning, November 4th.  That's where the updates on this journal begin.