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Foothills Sentry


Tuesday, March 10, 2015


Friendly persuasion gives new meaning to this Valentine’s Day heart


Minutes after completing a 25-


mile bike ride in Palm Springs, Rick Collins told his friends he didn’t feel well. At first, his wife Nancy and cycling buddies Mike and April Alvarez thought he was simply dehydrated. Mike Alvarez, an avid cy-


clist and Orange city council- man, enters the Tour de Palm Springs charity ride every year. This year, April and the Collins’ joined him. Rick and Nancy signed up for sentimental rea- sons. He had proposed to her on a bike ride, and the couple thought Valentine’s Day could be best celebrated on wheels. “It was 90 degrees that day,”


OUSD board OKs funding for facility fixes Mike and April Alvarez (left) enjoy a night out with friends Nancy and Rick Collins just two weeks after a


fateful bike ride cast Mike as a life-saver and Rick as a heart-attack survivor. Funding for the ongoing main-


tenance of schools in Orange Unified was unanimously ap- proved by the district’s board of trustees during its Feb. 26 meet- ing.


The board had previously ap-


proved increases in the district’s maintenance budget to cover deferred repairs and improve- ments. Staff subsequently as- sessed near-term needs and de- veloped a list of projects for this year totaling approximately $9.7 million.


Improvements include asphalt


replacement at six schools; as- phalt seal coats at 11 schools, painting at Chapman Hills and Taft; fire alarms at five loca- tions; restroom refurbishment at the four high schools; heating, ventilation and air conditioning replacement at four facilities; roofing replacement at six sites; and new flooring at three. It was noted that Prop. 39


funding could likely be used to install energy-efficient heating, ventilation and air conditioning.


Before voting, Trustee Mark


Wayland wanted assurances that none of these improvements would be dismantled if a future bond measure were to pass and major school overhauls were to take place. He was told that would not be the case. Board President John Ortega


said he wanted voters to see that the trustees were serious about school improvements, and will- ing to spend the money to fix things when they had it. “This is just a first step,” he said.


Alvarez explains. “There were about 8,000 people on that ride and a lot of them didn’t finish. When Rick started complain- ing about not feeling well, we thought he just needed to drink more water.” At first. Collins began complaining of


chest and stomach pain and, be- lieving he was experiencing acid reflux symptoms, told his friends he wanted to return to the hotel and rest.


Reading the signs “I could tell by his body lan-


guage that he was in serious trouble,” Alvarez says. “His color was bad, his limbs looked stiff, he was in terrible pain and clutching his chest. I convinced him to go to the first aid station and get checked out before we went back to the hotel.” Col-


lins continued to insist that he’d be okay, just needed some rest and hydration; Alvarez knew he wasn’t okay, and insisted he seek medical aid before doing any- thing else. The first aid station was about


two city blocks distant and the pair walked the whole way, with Alvarez holding up a stumbling Collins, whose pain kept getting worse and worse. At the first aid station, the


EMT’s called paramedics while stabilizing the reluctant patient. Even then, Collins didn’t real- ize the gravity of his situation. “They were loading me into the ambulance, and I asked if it was going to be a code three,” Collins recalls. “The paramedic said, ‘yes, heart attacks are always code three.’ That’s how I found out I was having one.” He was whisked off to a nearby hospital, where a shunt was inserted to un- clog a completely blocked major artery. Rick Collins, an active


62-year-old in good physical condition, had no idea his heart was at risk. Doctors told him that if his symptoms had begun during the 25-mile desert bike ride, the outcome would have been very different. Rick and Nancy Collins credit


Mike Alvarez with saving his life. “It was a God thing,” the now-recovered heart patient says. “Mike listened to the voice telling him to get me to first aid, and he got me there.”


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