Heart Attack

Around this time, my father went through an experience that I only found out about several years later. In January 1977 he suffered a major heart attack and took a long time to recover. During one of the episodes he went through in hospital he was revived using one of those electrical gadgets we now see so often on T.V. medical dramas, a defibrillator. In the Louth County Hospital it was affectionately known as the ‘mule’ because of the kick it gave a person’s chest! My dad later explained to me how, as he was being revived, he thought he heard a woman’s voice promising him that he wouldn’t die. Shortly afterwards he made a reasonable recovery and eventually was allowed back home. He never asked any of the staff if anyone had spoken to him during the incident. He presumed, for a very long time, that it must have been the voice of the Blessed Virgin Mary speaking to him. He never checked, he just took it for granted!