Professor returns after heart attack

EDITOR's NOTE: This article originally published in The Advocate on Aug. 31, 2011. To view original post, visit AccentAdvocate.com.

By Brett Abel, brettsabel@gmail.com

Joe DeTorres is known in EOPS for remembering the birthdays of staffers he directed more than five years ago.

But in February, those workers feared they would never get another card when the business and real estate department chairperson suffered a heart attack and coma for three weeks.

"It is a miracle, simply a miracle," said Vicki Ferguson, interim dean of student services. "I am so happy to have him back and teaching our future business leaders."

Dr. DeTorres, 64, returned this semester resuming his position as head of the business department after doctors advised him to rest the remainder of the spring semester and summer.

"Joe is the type of person who goes over and above and beyond the call of duty," said Dr. Ollie Bayless-Payne, EOPS coordinator. "We are so grateful he pulled through this and is back on campus again."

Those who interact with DeTorres all say the same thing: he has the largest heart of anyone at Contra Costa College and always puts students first.

"He really has a heart for teaching this profession," business major Lakisha Hill said before class with DeTorres on Monday.

But when DeTorres' heart stopped Feb. 4, his 17 years of helping anyone needing a hand at CCC nearly ceased as well.

"I came home one Friday evening from work and was changing my clothes downstairs, my family was upstairs, and my dog was downstairs and I blacked out," DeTorres said. "No one knew I blacked out. My dog pretty much saved my life."

Maggie, DeTorres' spotted rat terrier, ran up and down the stairs of DeTorres' East County home barking at his wife and three children until they finally discovered him passed out and dialed 911.

"She's a pretty smart dog," DeTorres said with a smile pushing his black and grey beard toward the edges of his face.

Paramedics took DeTorres to two different hospitals, rushing him between intensive care and emergency rooms.

"The doctor on duty was one of the pioneers of the stent (a small mesh tube inserted into arteries)," DeTorres said. "He examined me, brought me in, took me to the emergency room and inserted a stent into my aorta."

DeTorres' pale face brightened as blood circulated through his body and his color came back as the blocked artery cleared.

But he was still in extreme danger.

"I died five times," he said. "Each of the five times I was revived with a defibrillator." The doctors used the electronic device 56 times to reboot his weakened heart.

"All that time in the emergency room I almost didn't make it," DeTorres said. "The doctor told my family to start preparing for the worst because it didn't look good."

All the while his friends and colleagues at CCC were frightened and left in disbelief.

"We were devastated," said Bayless-Payne, who replaced Ferguson, who replaced DeTorres. "How could this happen to such a wonderful person?"

After weeks of comatose and assisted eating and breathing in an Antioch hospital, DeTorres emerged from ICU and non-immediate family members could visit him.

"Even after leaving EOPS, he keeps in touch with EOPS staff and is still a member of the EOPS family," Bayless-Payne said.

"I wanted to see him in the hospital," EOPS programs assistant Sarn Saepharn said, "but he was in ICU and guests were not allowed. Three days later we went."

Saepharn, who met DeTorres in 2004 when he returned from Guam to be EOPS coordinator, said his old boss still had tubes down his throat but smiled and gave his visitors thumbs up when they told him to stay strong and they were praying for him.

After DeTorres spent three weeks and dropped 30 pounds in the hospital, doctors allowed him to return home with no brain damage, but recommended he take it easy for a while.

In addition to taking a leave of absence from teaching for a semester, they advised him to cut back on "all the things I grew up on and love," including bacon, sausage and steak.

They also said he needed to resist an item he made famous during his tenure as EOPS coordinator: doughnuts.

DeTorres began the short-lived tradition in the EOPS Office of Doughnut Friday.

But he eliminated processed sugars from his diet and advocates a healthier lifestyle since his heart attack.

"I tell everyone I know, ‘Watch your diet,'" he said. "People need to pay attention to themselves. Their body will tell them, but often times we ignore our body."

DeTorres' episode was all the more shocking due to his doctor's examination earlier.

"I had no idea it would happen. I felt fit and a physical confirmed it," he said. "Blockages can happen anytime."

While DeTorres recuperated in the hospital and at home, he worried about missing work and his students being left out of the classroom.

He called Linda Armistead in human resources worried he did not have enough sick days or vacation banked to last through his recovery.

But, just as DeTorres put so many before himself, they returned the favor.

"She said, ‘All kinds of people contributed sick days for you.' I was floored," he said. "I didn't realize that was something people did — for me anyway."

It was finally a chance for those he helped to help him.

"He cares more for others over himself," Saepharn said. "He's a caring individual who gave a lot to the program. Students come first, staff comes first."