Williamsburg Mayor has minor heart attack; already back on the job

Above, Williamsburg Mayor Roddy Harrison during a recent speech to the town’s Kiwanis Club.

Williamsburg Mayor Roddy Harrison was back to work for a few hours Monday afternoon after suffering a minor heart attack last week.

"I’m OK. I appreciate all the cards and letters and phone calls, but I’m fine," Harrison said. "I’m a little sore from where they put in a heart catheterization. I did have a heart attack. There is no permanent damage from what I understand."

Harrison, 52, said he had an 80 percent blockage in one artery and was treated with a stent.

The experience has left him with a message for others suffering chest pain.

"If you have that weird feeling, then go get it checked. Don’t feel silly and wait. Go get it checked," he said.

Harrison said that he had already been walking and doing a little weight lifting trying to get in shape before the heart attack happened last Sunday or Monday.

"I had already started cutting back that was the most aggravating thing about it. I had lost 20 pounds and was walking about two miles a day," he said.

Harrison said that he started feeling bad with some tightness in his chest and a strange feeling in his neck where he swallows last Sunday afternoon.

"It was like an air pocket or golf ball," he said.

The feeling subsided a little bit and later that night it returned. Harrison said the pain kept him from resting very well.

"I was up and down and debated on whether to go to the emergency room," Harrison said. "I took the indigestion medicine."

When the pain was still there the next morning, he decided to go to the Care Plus Center to see Dr. Robert Penn.

When Harrison told the nurses at the center he had some chest pain, he immediately went to the front of the line.

Harrison said that while his blood pressure was high, his EKG was fine. His doctor suggested spending the night at Jellico Hospital for observation.

About midnight last Monday, hospital officials told Harrison that he was being sent to the Intensive Care Unit because of levels of an enzyme that indicates that you’ve had a heart attack.

Last Tuesday morning, Harrison’s doctors informed him that he was going to Oak Ridge. At that point, he knew things were serious.

They offered to fly him there, but Harrison declined noting the flight itself would probably give him another heart attack.

"They took me down to Oak Ridge. I got excellent care. They put the stent in Tuesday morning," he said. "They are monitoring everything. I feel great. I’m a little stir crazy but they told me not to go out."

Harrison said that because of his medical issues, he might not be able to attend Fourth of July festivities Wednesday.

"If I’m not there, it won’t be because I didn’t want to be. It will be because they told me that I shouldn’t be," he added.
Harrison said that he initially didn’t think he was having a heart attack because he wasn’t having pain shooting down his arm or any numbness in his fingers.

"For anybody out there, if you feel weird, any kind of pressure, any difference in your body, then don’t wait until you get those shooting pains down your arm because I didn’t have them," Harrison said. "My EKG was fine but I had a heart attack and that’s scary. It kind of felt like somebody was pressing on my chest a little bit. It wasn’t what I envisioned a heart attack would feel like. It was constant pressure."

Harrison said that when the doctor clears him, he plans to start walking again and resume other exercises.

"We are going to eat better. We thought we were eating OK, but there are some issues with my diet that I have to change. It’s a little lifestyle change," Harrison said.

"The Lord sent me a wake-up call. It could have been a bigger wake-up call, but this one is one that I can turn around so I am going to do it."