By Laura French
SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine — A longtime Maine paramedic and former fire chief visited a fire station this weekend to thank the first responders who saved him after he experienced his own life-threatening emergency in August.
Ron Morin, a 50-year EMS veteran who served as the fire chief in Carrabassett Valley for 17 years, was driving his truck on Aug. 14 when he went into cardiac arrest, causing the truck to crash into another car and a building, according to News Center Maine.
South Portland Fire Rescue and South Portland Police Department personnel responded to the crash; police officers performed CPR and EMTs used a defibrillator twice. Morin’s pulse returned and he was transported to Maine Medical Center where he was treated for a left coronary occlusion. He was discharged from a cardiac rehabilitation facility on Aug. 29.
This Saturday, Morin went to South Portland Fire Rescue’s Western Avenue Fire Station to meet with and thank the firefighters, EMTs and police officers who answered the call that day. Morin, who graduated from Maine’s first-ever paramedic class in 1982, served on the Maine EMS Board, founded the Maine EMS Honor Guard and taught EMS courses for nearly three decades, said he could “count on a single hand how many times someone came back and said thank you” and wanted to show the first responders the gratitude they deserved for saving his life, according to News Center Maine.