Delta firefighter Reid Taylor knows how crucial health care is and demonstrates that every year by putting on 20 kg of firefighting gear and sprinting or running to raise money for BC Children’s Hospital.
He does so in recognition of the help his daughter received as a newborn, after first staying in intensive care, then transferring to BC Children’s for final tests.
He now has an even greater appreciation after nearly dying himself last year from a massive heart attack.
Taylor, with Delta Fire and Emergency Services, was training in 2023 for his second fundraising marathon in which he runs 42 km in full firefighter turnout gear.
But in the weeks leading up to the event, he began noticing pains in his chest, which he ignored for weeks, thinking it was heartburn or something else.
“Which is not the right thing to do but you just play it off as something else, right … you just figure out an excuse,” he said.
His condition reached the point where he couldn’t go for a light jog without getting severe chest pains. At work, when the tone sounded and a fire call came in and his heart rate went up, he’d also get bad chest pains.
Then on one of his training runs, the pain became so intense he thought he was going to have a heart attack on the street. He managed to get home, then to the hospital where doctors found the blockage and put in the stent.
“I’m extremely lucky,” Taylor said. “It’s called the widow-maker artery. It’s got a very low percentage survival rate. It’s in the mid-teens, like 15 per cent survival rate if you have a heart attack in that (main) artery.”
However, it’s been a slow recovery with the medication affecting physical performance. After several months he changed medications, which allowed him to start training again and get in two months of conditioning before this year’s run.
And run he did, in full gear, on March 19 raising more than $10,000 for BC Children’s Hospital.
Taylor said he’s not in the same shape as in 2022 when he ran his first marathon, but at least he finished the 42 km, although it took about a half hour longer.
Still, getting back to running helped him feel that he was getting back his normal life, while he’s been back to work for a year.
He’s not sure what he’ll do next year, saying it’s too soon to decide, adding it would be great to able to raise $100,000 for the hospital.
In the past several years, he’s raised more than $72,000 for the B.C. Children’s Hospital Foundation.
This year, the Delta Firefighters Charitable Society kicked in $2,730, in recognition of his regimental No. 273.
