From Patient to Purpose: Why this work is personal

I was standing in front of the stove making dinner when I felt it. A weight pressing down on my chest, like a cinder block on my sternum. 

I set down the spatula. Took a breath. Told myself it was nothing. 

I'd had a panic attack before, and I tried to convince myself this was the same thing. Deep down, though, something whispered that this was different. Then came the tingling, creeping down my left arm like cold water running under my skin. 

Could this be a heart attack? 

I shook off the thought. I was 37 years old. I did CrossFit. I ate mostly healthy. Heart attacks happened to other people. Older people. Sicker people. Not me. 

So I finished making dinner. I cleaned up the kitchen. I got ready for bed. 

I was sitting on the edge of our bed when my wife got home. She took one look at my face and froze. 

"What's wrong?" 

I didn't have a good answer. I told her about the pressure, the tingling. Immediately, she grabbed her keys, and we left for the hospital. 

We live in a small town in North Carolina. About 600 people, give or take. The nearest grocery store is 30 minutes away. The nearest hospital is 45. 

That night, those 45 minutes felt like forever. 

In the emergency room, they ran an EKG and sent me back to the waiting room. It was packed. I sat there for an hour, watching the clock, half-convinced I was overreacting. When they finally called me back and ran more tests, a doctor looked at the results, then looked at me. 

"You're having a heart attack." 

The doctor would later call it a "widow maker." It's the kind of blockage that kills most people who have it. My heart was almost entirely blocked. They rushed me into surgery and put in a stent. I spent six days in the hospital. A month later, I went back for two more. 

Three stents. At 37. 

Here's the thing about living out in the country: I love it. I was born and raised in that little town, and I never wanted to leave. My mom lives a few minutes down the road. My sister, too. The kids have room to run. I can hunt – bow and rifle – filling our freezer every year with venison, turkey, and duck. There's a peace and quiet you just can't find in the city. 

But that distance has a cost. 

When I had my heart attack, it had been six years since I'd seen a doctor. And that visit was for a broken hand. Preventive care? It wasn't even on my radar. The doctor was far away, and I felt fine. Why bother? 

I know now what that kind of thinking almost cost me. It almost cost my wife her husband. It almost cost my kids their dad. 

I think about that a lot now, especially at work. 

I'm part of the fabrication team at Mission Mobile Medical. We build mobile clinics, the kind that bring healthcare directly to communities that don't have easy access to it. Communities like mine. My job is to make sure every clinic that rolls out of our shop has exactly what it needs, on time and on budget, to serve the people who need it most. 

It's detailed work. It takes a team of creative, hardworking people who care about getting it right. And I'm proud to be one of them. 

But this job is more than a paycheck to me. It's personal. 

Every time I watch a finished clinic pull out of the shop, I think about the people it's going to reach. Maybe it's a farmer who hasn't seen a doctor in years. Maybe it's a young mom who can't take time off work to drive an hour to a clinic. Maybe it's a 37-year-old guy who thinks he's too young and too healthy to worry. 

Maybe that clinic catches something early. Maybe it saves a life. 

Maybe it gives someone else the second chance I got. 

The heart attack should have killed me. It didn't. 

Now I get to spend my days helping build something that might keep the same thing from happening to someone else. I get to come home to my wife and kids every night. I get to live in the little town I've loved my whole life. 

I don't take any of it for granted. Not anymore.

Garrett Hutchens
Warehouse Receiving Lead
Mission Mobile Medical