Texas Heart Attack Survivor Looking for Strangers Who Saved His Life

May 04--

Did you save Doug Gowland's life? If so, he's looking for you.

You probably don't know his name. You probably remember him as the fit-looking guy who fell off his bike, blacked out and stopped breathing in the O. Henry Middle School parking lot. It was March 29. A Saturday. Around 12:50 p.m.

There were two of you, both men. One of you performed CPR. The other held an oxygen mask over Gowland's face. Then, when EMS took over, when your work was done, both of you just walked away. Is this ringing any bells?

Gowland really, really, really wants find you. He's papering his West Austin neighborhood with fliers seeking you out. He wants to buy you a beer. He wants you to fill in the missing pieces of the near-death experience he can't remember. And, of course, he wants to thank you.

"It's been a real miracle," Gowland said of his recovery. "That's why I need to find these two angels."

Gowland, who spent years as an actor and writer in New York before recently retiring in Austin, was riding his bike to his volunteer gig at the Lions Municipal Golf Course. He can't remember this. In fact, he can't remember anything in the two weeks preceding the accident. But he knows he was headed to the golf course because that's where he goes on Saturdays and he was found wearing his volunteer name tag.

Exactly what happened next is unclear. One witness said Gowland slowed down, made a noise and hit an oak tree, said Station 10 Fire Specialist Christopher Lafferre. Another insisted that Gowland just fell near the tree.

When firefighters arrived, you two angels were administering medical care while a dozen or so people looked on. One of you -- an athletic-looking man all decked out in cycling gear -- told Lafferre that when you started CPR on Rowland, he was looking a little cyanotic.

Not bluish in the face. Cyanotic. Is this a clue or do you just watch a lot of Grey's Anatomy?

Meanwhile, other angel, you were using your own bag valve mask -- a hand-operated device used to pump air into a person who is not breathing -- on Gowland. Who walks around carrying one of those? Are you a doctor? Even the firefighters want an answer that one.

"I can honestly say I've never been at a scene where a bystander has an oxygen tank and a BVM," said firefighter D.J. Martinez.

The next thing Gowland remembers is waking up five days later, recovering from quadruple bypass surgery at Seton Medical Center. The first thing he saw was a bunch of people at his bedside.

"I couldn't figure out why these people were in my bedroom," he said.

More shocking to him was the fact that he -- a fit guy who doesn't smoke, eats right and exercises regularly -- could nearly drop dead without a single warning sign. There was no tingling in his arm or sharp pain in his chest before that day. It just happened.

Gowland says he wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for his angels. Now, fresh-cut grass smells fresher, pretty women are prettier, and cute puppies are cuter, he says. He's got a bucket list now. He wants to read the complete works of William Shakespeare, write another book, make another movie and be a better friend.

Right now, though, his priority is meeting his heroes. Are you reading this, angels? Call Gowland at 646-678-1255. He'll wait as long as it takes.

"You don't find angels," he said. "They find you."

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