Timely rescue ensures swimmer's return

Eight weeks after a heart attack at Carson Valley Swim Center laid him up, Bill Hamilton returned on Thursday to get his feet wet.

Bill, who turns 68 next week, was doing his morning workout on Dec. 9 when he was hit by a heart attack.

He said that he was 5-7 meters from the wall when he lost consciousness.

"Kevin Hayes and Bud Harris were watching and said I suddenly slowed down," Hamilton said. "Bud said, 'looks like Bill's getting tired,' and Kevin said 'Billy doesn't get tired, something's wrong.' They both jumped in. Bud was in his clothes, they and another guy named Gary lifted me out onto the pool deck. They started mouth to mouth."

Center employee Linda Rigdon, an emergency medical technician, started doing chest compressions while Kevin did mouth to mouth resuscitation.

Three minutes after receiving the call, Paramedic Jeff Marsh and a crew from East Fork Fire & Paramedic Districts Station 14 arrived and began life support.

He was taken to Carson Valley Medical Center and then transferred to Carson Tahoe Regional Medical Center.

"My heart was fading in and out," Bill said. "It was a fortunate thing for me they caught it so quickly. The time I didn't have oxygen to my brain was very small if any. If this had taken place someplace else, I could have suffered brain damage or death."

Thursday was Bill's first day back at the pool since the heart attack.

Bill has lived in Carson Valley for 18 years and the swim center was one of the amenities that attracted him here. He served on the East Fork Swimming Pool District board between 1992 and 2004. It was a decision he participated in as a board trustee that may have helped save his life.

Before he left the board, Bill said he and Gordon Gray persuaded the board to approve a 5 percent bonus for people with skills such as Rigdon's.

"When we put that through in 2003, we had one EMT on staff, now there are five," he said. "At the time In-N-Out was offering $8 and Costco for $10. We were paying the staff $6.70. We improved wages for the rank and file."

Hamilton thanked everyone involved in rescuing him.

"There were a lot of people involved, pool staff, volunteers, paramedics," he said.

It looks like Gardnerville's Delaney Battista is eating her spinach at the University of Nevada, Reno, where she is pursuing a degree in nutrition.

She was named to the dean's list in the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology and Natural Resources for the 2008 fall semester.

The 2007 Douglas High School graduate is the daughter of Doug and Sally Battista. She's received an academic scholarship from the university for her sophomore year and is a Millennium Scholar. Last summer she completed five weeks with International Student Volunteers in Costa Rica working on conservation projects.

Delaney was best in show for the 2007 Nevada Junior Duck Stamp design contest sponsored by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Gardnerville resident Lou Ann Yang had been trying to get a photo of this crane on Martin Slough for 18 months when she finally succeeded in December 2007.

"He's a very private bird," she said. "I've been trying to get him for a year and a half."

Lou Ann has lived in Gardnerville for three years.