Call from VA saved veteran's life

Syracuse veteran saved by emergency phone call from VA
Standard-Examiner
By Jamie Lampros
correspondent
07/29/2013

SYRACUSE — Larry Kerr finally decided to answer one of the insistent phone calls from the Veterans Administration. It’s a good thing he did. That phone call saved his life from a potentially deadly heart condition.

Kerr, 65, was home sleeping last week when his phone rang around 10 a.m. He thought it was just the hospital calling to tell him about an appointment they had set up for him.

“I figured they would leave a message, but they didn’t. They called again. And then they started calling my cellphone,” he said.

The phone call was from a physician at the VA, telling him he needed to get to the emergency room immediately.

“He said, ‘I’ve called 911. You need to get there right now. Right now,’” Kerr said.

Within minutes, the Syracuse and Layton fire, police and EMS were at his door, along with the Davis County Sheriff’s Office. They got Kerr out of bed and transported him to Davis Hospital and Medical Center, where he was diagnosed with ventricular tachycardia and fibrillation, a fast and irregular heart rhythm and the leading cause of sudden cardiac death.
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