EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT
IAIN’S STORY
Last year, the Emergency Department at Royal Jubilee Hospital treated over 57,000 patient cases — 9,500 of which were cardiac emergencies. Iain McCaig, renowned artist and storyteller, was one of them. Known in the past for a certain Jethro Tull album cover, these days Iain is responsible for helping create movie icons like Darth Maul, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, the Hulk, Mad Eyed Moody, Mowgli and more. “I remember every drawing,” Iain says, “but one is especially vivid. It was a robot, and I was drawing it for Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks didn’t know this yet, because he hadn’t signed to do the movie, but the producer was hopeful, and I was happy to oblige. It was last March, three days after my 60th birthday. I never made it to the drawing board.” On the way to his studio, Iain collapsed, but he managed to dial 911. He was rushed to the Royal Jubilee Hospital Emergency Department where an electrocardiogram (ECG) confirmed what the doctors already knew: Iain was in the midst of a major heart attack. The vague yet persistent symptoms he had been ignoring during his morning runs and workouts — slight pain and shortness of breath — were not the foreshadows of old age. “When you are seemingly healthy, fit, and active, not to mention unstoppably optimistic,” Iain says, “it’s easy to speed past the warning signs.” The ECG results made it clear to the cardiac team that the cause of Iain’s heart attack was a blocked artery. He was rushed upstairs where cardiologists in the Heart Catheterization Laboratory used a C-arm to insert a balloon and stent to unblock the artery. The angioplasty procedure stopped the heart attack instantly by opening the artery and allowing blood flow to return to normal. Cardiologist Dr. Peter Gladstone explains how timely treatment makes all the difference to people experiencing a heart attack. “The number one factor in the success of angioplasty is how quickly we are able to perform it. If a heart attack patient receives the procedure within two hours of the onset of severe pain, there is typically no lasting damage to the heart muscle. The sophisticated tools in the Heart Catheterization Laboratory allow us to stop heart attacks in progress.” When Iain woke up in the Patient Care Centre the morning after his heart attack, the first thing he asked the nurse for was a pencil and paper. “And then I drew my producer friend his robot.” He then proceeded to give the staff sketches and art classes and added dinosaurs to his vital statistics white board. Dr. Gladstone let him go home before he started drawing on the walls. Now home in his studio, Iain looks back on the event with an even brighter gleam in his eyes. “The epiphany was coming home and realizing that all the undone things — the stories I’ve wanted to tell and the pictures waiting to be drawn and everything else I’ve been meaning to get around to — all that vanishes with me when I go. So whatever it is you really want to do in life, do it now. This is not a dress rehearsal.” With a smile, he adds, “And watch those warning signs. A life well-lived is perhaps the greatest art of all.” “It’s imperative for people to check their risk factors with their doctors,” says Dr. Gladstone. “In Iain’s case, even though he led an exceptionally healthy lifestyle, he had undiagnosed elevated cholesterol which led to the blockage in his artery.” When our hospitals have the expert teams and leading-edge tools they need to save people, potentially tragic stories become triumphant tales of survival. Postscript: The science fiction film Bios is currently scheduled to begin filming in 2018. It will star Tom Hanks. And a robot.