David Willis’s LifeFlight Story: “Everything lined up perfectly”
David Willis is no stranger to responding to emergencies. He’s volunteered as a firefighter for more than a decade. In 2020, he moved back to Bethel, Maine, from Vermont to take a new job as the Assistant Head of School for Finance and Operations at Gould Academy. He’s also the head coach of the Boys Varsity Lacrosse team, and, of course, a volunteer firefighter. He spends a lot of time on campus with the students, as well as in the community. Bethel is a special place, he says, where everyone looks out for one another.
An avid skier, competitive biker, and all-around athlete, David is in great shape. But several years ago, he suffered a heart attack. Doctors put a stent in his heart, and he recovered quickly. “I really focused on being super healthy and doing everything I was supposed to do,” said David.
“In June my cardiologist told me: ‘You’re one of the healthiest people we’re going to see all month.’ Three weeks later I dropped dead.”
David was finishing a 15-mile bike ride one morning. He stopped and rested for a moment, coincidentally in front of the home of the chief of the Bethel Fire Department, before continuing his ride. The chief happened to notice and told his wife it was unusual to see David stop mid ride. Minutes later, the chief’s phone rang, alerting him, along with other members of the local fire department and EMS agency, to a 54-year-old male who had been hit by a car while biking.
The chief responded immediately. The scene was near his home, so it only took him a few minutes to get to there. He saw David on the ground. David hadn’t been hit by a car, but instead had passed out on his bike and collapsed onto the road. He had no pulse. The chief immediately started performing CPR and David regained a pulse. When the Bethel Ambulance Service arrived, one of the EMTs also recognized David. She had graduated from Gould Academy a few months prior.
David arrested again in the back of the ambulance on the way to Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway. The head of the Bethel Ambulance Service resuscitated him in transit. It was the second time in minutes that David was clinically dead.
LifeFlight of Maine’s Sanford-based crew was dispatched — flight nurse Kayla Jones, flight paramedic Paul Silva, and pilot Mike Bonenfant. David’s medical team had him loaded onto a stretcher and were waiting on the helipad at Stephens Memorial Hospital, but after he was transferred into the helicopter, crews once again lost his pulse.
“Paul and I asked the EMS crew standing by to alert the ER we needed assistance. Fellow EMS personnel helped with resuscitation efforts. After ongoing CPR and nine electric shocks, we stabilized him enough to continue with the transport,” said Kayla.
David was flown from Norway to Maine Medical Center in Portland. He had experienced what is often referred to as a “widowmaker heart attack.” The biggest artery in his heart was completely blocked. Doctors put a stent in, just as they had a few years prior.
“I attribute the reason I’m here today to the immediate response of the local first responders and then the ability to get to Maine Medical Center as quickly as I did,” said David, reflecting on the day.
“I still don’t know why I survived,” he continued. “I’m lucky that I was within half a mile from town. I’m lucky that it was a Saturday morning and that everyone was around,” David said. “Everything lined up perfectly.”
