When Corrinne Feeney’s oxygen supply failed in her sleep, her life was slipping away.
At the same time, Sandra Berry, a secretary in the Gorham Fire Department, was trying to reach her and members of her family. When she couldn’t, she sent police officer David Kearns to her home, where he caught Feeney as she collapsed in her doorway and called paramedics.
The response on June 15 was the result of Gorham’s Community Cares program, which monitors the well being of elderly residents by answering phone calls they make daily at designated times. The program saved the life of Feeney, a 71-year-old widow who live alone.
“I wouldn’t leave Gorham for all the tea in China,” said a thankful Feeney Thursday, two weeks after the incident that nearly claimed her life.
Feeney had no way of realizing that her oxygen apparatus had malfunctioned during the night while she slept. She needs oxygen 24 hours a day.
When Feeney didn’t call the staff in the Gorham Fire Department office that administers the program by her usual time at 10 a.m., Berry rang Feeney’s home two minutes later. Berry called her family when the woman didn’t answer. Even though the phone was beside her bed, Feeney didn’t hear it ring.
After contacting the woman’s daughter-in-law, Cathy Feeney in Buxton, to see whether the woman might have had an appointment, Berry immediately called Cumberland County Dispatch to send an officer.
The woman’s son-in-law, Bob Henckel, is a Gorham police officer, but he was at an accident elsewhere in Gorham. Feeney’s daughter, Darrin Henckel of Limington, credited Berry with acting fast.
“They treated it very professionally and dispatched another officer,” Darrin Henckel said. “These people did everything wonderfully.”
A voice in the distance
Henckel said Kearns, soon after arriving, could hear her mother moaning inside her home. He broke the lock to get in, she said.
Corrinne Feeney remembers being awakened by a voice calling out for her to unlock the door. “It was like way off in the distance,” Feeney said about the voice.
She was able to rise from her bed. “I got up slow,” Feeney said.
Then, she made it a short distance to her front door and unlocked it, but the storm door was also secured. Feeney heard a voice calling out again. However, her strength had failed. “I just couldn’t get there,” Feeney said of her inability to reach for the storm door.
“Break it. Please,” she responded and that was the last she remembered.
Cathy Feeney said Kearns caught her mother-in-law as she collapsed, and he called for a Gorham rescue. “She was fading in and out a lot,” Cathy Feeney said. “She almost died.”
Gorham rescue rushed her to Maine Medical Center in Portland. Corrinne Feeney didn’t remember anything more until waking up attached to “all kinds of monitors” in the hospital. “It was kind of a surprise,” Feeney said.
Doctors in the hospital’s emergency room were close to asking the family for permission to put Feeney on life support. Later, a doctor told her the medical team was “giving up” on her. But she rallied before a life support decision had to be made.
She heard a doctor saying they were going to put a tube down her throat. “No, I’ll choke,” she replied, according to her daughter and son, Frank Feeney.
A week later, Corrinne Feeney was back at home, where she wouldn’t be able to remain without the help of Gorham’s Community Cares program.
An ‘excellent’ program
Feeney enrolled about 18 months ago after hearing about it at a senior luncheon at St. Anne’s Catholic Church in Gorham. “I never thought I’d have to use things like that,” she said.
A neighbor, Rev. Peter Beckwith, pastor of South Gorham Baptist Church, was mowing his lawn when Kearns’ cruiser pulled up at Feeney’s home that day. He was asked by Kearns to accompany him into the home.
Cathy Feeney said Beckwith and his wife watch out for her mother-in-law and he assisted in the response to the emergency. She said Beckwith ran from window to window, calling out to the woman.
But Beckwith credited Kearns and the town’s program. “The police officer was the one who saved her life. I was able to watch his great work,” Beckwith said. “I’m proud of our Gorham police, and I think Gorham Cares is an outstanding program, and it saved her life.”
Gorham Fire Chief Robert Lefebvre said anyone is welcome to sign up for the program at no cost. “It’s an excellent program. It works great,” Lefebvre said.
The program, which is operational every day year-round, now has six elderly ladies. Lefebvre said there are new pamphlets explaining details and those interested could enroll over the phone in a few minutes.
Corrinne Feeney said calling in is a pleasant experience each day. “Oh, it’s so good to hear your voice,” she said Lefebvre responded when she called the first time after going home from the hospital. “Be sure to call everyday.”
The family of Corrinne Feeney praised Community Cares. “Thank God for that program. Without it, my mother-in-law would be dead,” Cathy Feeney said.
Darrin Henckel said her mother’s experience reinforces the need for Community Cares. “The gravity of the situation was a shocker,” Henckel said.
The fate of the program received a lot of attention last year during talks about consolidating Gorham’s dispatch with that of Cumberland County. The county’s communication director, Bill Holmes, credits the Gorham Fire Department and its secretaries, Berry and Karen Paro, with continuing the elderly call-in program.
“During the course of discussion there was a lot of dialogue about the Community Cares program. The arrangement that was made with the town of Gorham for that program seems to have worked out very well,” Holmes said.
Residents who want to sign up for Community Cares, should call the Gorham Fire Department’s business line at 839-6762.
Corrinne Feeney, 71, is alive and at home, thanks to Community Cares, an elderly call-in program in Gorham.Send questions/comments to the editors.
