Monday, February 11, 2008 11:08 PM CST
Walk participants include those less likely to suffer from heart disease
By NATHANIEL WEST, Staff Writer
nwest@jg-tc.com
MATTOON — The Coles County Heart Walk on Sunday served as a reminder that cardiovascular disease affects people of all ages, male and female..
“Younger people need to take care of themselves” too, said Mike Turner, a 29-year-old Neoga resident who suffered a heart attack last summer.
“Heart attacks are not picky.”
Sponsored by Sarah Bush Lincoln Health System, the annual Heart Walk at the Cross County Mall in Mattoon drew hundreds of participants who completed three laps around the main terminal of the mall in order to raise money for the American Heart Association.
The financial goal of Sunday’s event was $45,000, but there was no price tag on the larger objective: saving lives.
Master of ceremonies Robert Reese, chief meteorologist for WCIA Channel 3, said deaths by heart disease and stroke have declined by 26 percent and 25 percent, respectively, since 1999. That translates to 160,000 lives per year.
“You are changing lives,” he told participants.
Among them was 70-year-old Linda Drumm of Humboldt, who walked at Sunday’s event arm-in-arm with her granddaughters, 10-year-old Karlie and 11-year-old Haylie Lading.
In July, physicians discovered 90 percent blockage of arteries in or near Drumm’s heart. “I was an accident waiting to happen,” she said.
Prior to her open-heart surgery over the summer, she wouldn’t have had the energy to walk a mile through the Mattoon mall. “Now I’m able to do this,” she said Sunday.
Haylie Lading said she wants to be a nurse when she grows up because of her grandmother’s experience. “I feel sorry for people like Grandma,” she said.
“Her heart wasn’t doing okay, and I want to help those people.”
She wasn’t the only young person impacted by heart disease.
Whitley McDaniel, 8, participated in the heart walk — with the team from Mattoon Academy of Gymnastics and Dance — the day before her grandfather was scheduled for triple-bypass surgery.
McDaniel said she hoped to raise awareness. “If people have heart problems, they could die,” she said.
After speaking to walkers, Turner led the survivors at the vanguard of the procession through the mall.
“Heart attacks don’t have an age limit,” he said.
Contact Nathaniel West at nwest@jg-tc.com or 238-6860.
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