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Retired Brownsville Miner Overcomes Family Curse

The recent events in Chile show how dangerous coal mining can be. But, a former Brownsville miner faced his most dangerous challenge above ground.

At 38 years old, Kenneth McClelland suffered a heart attack at home.

While in the hospital, he was told that along with his heart problems, he also had diabetes and high blood pressure. This was something he was not aware of but suspected because of his family history. Soon after, he went back to work for another ten years at the former Maple Creek Mine in Bentleyville, but his health got progressively worse. He retired, but continued to battle a variety of cardiovascular diseases, including a stroke.

Now 58, McClelland can finally see light at the end of the tunnel – something any veteran coal miner will say is a good thing. After years of living with his long list of health maladies and a poor family medical history, he was not exactly the best candidate for a heart transplant.

“Heart troubles have been a family curse,” McClelland explained.

Thanks in part to the cardiac rehabilitation program at the Mon-Vale HealthPLEX in Rostraver, Ken was able to beat that deadly family curse.

“I wanted to come here because it was the only rehab program in the area with nurses and a doctor on-site,” McClelland said. “Otherwise, I would have had to go travel Pittsburgh three days a week.”

While employed at the former Brownsville Hospital, Ken Furlong, RN, supervisor of the Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehabilitation program at HealthPLEX, first provided treatment to McClelland after his initial heart attack 20 years ago.

“When he first came to HealthPLEX, Ken couldn't walk 20 yards without pain,” Furlong said. Now, he can easily tolerate the treadmill for a quarter-of-a-mile without discomfort.” He did it by wearing a heart pump powered by two 14-volt battery packs that essentially was keeping him alive. McClelland was destined to wear the cardiac assisted pump day and night for the rest of his life without a transplant.

However, less than two weeks after his final visit to HealthPLEX, and after a succession of stringent tests to monitor heart strength, McClelland got a call he really wasn't expecting. His vital signs had improved enough to be put on the candidates' list for transplant surgery. He had his transplant a week after that initial call and is currently recovering from the life-saving procedure.

Good-bye battery backs. So-long family curse.