As Dan Wentworth tells it, he shouldn’t be alive, much less back behind the bar at the King Eider’s Pub in Damariscotta.
As dozens of familiar customers gathered to greet his return Tuesday, Dan explained how a simple afternoon kayak trip turned into major heart surgery that saved his life.
It was Sept. 26, he said, when he decided to take an afternoon kayak trip on a day he should have stayed home.
“I pushed off from Broad Cove in Muscongus Bay, the current was bad, but I thought I had a lot of energy that day and figured I would be fine. Then the current got me and I turned over,” he said.
He nearly drowned, was cold, had trouble breathing and admits was not in very good shape at all.
Somehow, Dan managed to pull for shore where a young guy named Mike Steele, from the Boston area, assisted him and called the Bremen Volunteer Fire Department.
“Those guys (firefighters) are great. They humped me through the woods to the ambulance that took me to Miles Memorial Hospital in Damariscotta. Then they sent me to Maine Medical in Portland,” he said.
Doctors at Maine Medical were able to clear up his breathing problems – then he had a heart attack.
He had recovered from the heart attack when doctors told him he had two blocked arteries in his heart and needed a double by-pass operation to clean out his blood vessels.
They gave him a few days to think about the operation then it was back in the hospital on Oct. 15.
The doctors said the by-pass operation was successful, but Dan still didn’t feel right.
“I couldn’t walk with out being tired. It was bad,” he said.
In November, he was back to the emergency room, but the doctors couldn’t find out what was wrong. He still couldn’t walk very far and admits he “pooped out” after just a few steps. “I felt terrible,” he said.
Then, suddenly, he says something happened.
He says something “just popped” and he felt fine.
“I could not walk 100 feet. Now I am up to three miles a day and am going to try to walk five miles,” he said.
On Tuesday, Todd Maurer, the pub’s owner threw a party for the man who has been a fixture behind the tiny bar since July 1997.
“Everyone knows and likes Dan. I got e-mails and calls from all over the East coast from folks who heard about his health problems and wanted to wish him well, so I just invited them to come over and wish him well in person,” said Maurer.
As could be expected, the tiny pub was packed with friends wearing t-shirts welcoming Wentworth back to life, and back to that tiny pub tucked in a tiny alley in a tiny riverside town.
