On June 6, Joe and I along with our daughter who has Down Syndrome went to Martha’s Vineyard to celebrate our 60th wedding anniversary. On June 8, early Wednesday morning, Joe went out for his usual morning walk. My daughter and I got up and went to the lobby at 8:30 to wait for Joe to come in so we could all go out to breakfast. When he wasn’t back by 9 a.m., I thought it unusual for him. By 9:30 I went to the desk and asked them to call the police station to see if they had any information on Joe LeBlanc. They made the call and they said the police station would call back. Ten minutes later a plain clothes policeman named Jonathan Searle came in and said they found Joe.

Our daughter was seated to my right and the policeman squatted to my left to protect my daughter from the news. (Impressive.) He said they found Joe collapsed on the ground and a school teacher and a mailman found him unresponsive, and started CPR and called for an ambulance. They came and used a defibrillator on Joe. They then took him to the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital and again used the defibrillator. They also intubated him and decided to medivac him to Beth Hospital in Boston. He had a cardiac arrest but he was alive. They checked his phone and found numbers for our son and me. They called our son and found out where we were staying. Policeman Jonathan suggested we would probably need to pack up and go back home. We did and officer Jonathan came with us and helped us pack. He was such a big help.

Then I realized we had a car but no keys, as Joe had them in his pocket and he was gone to Boston. Jonathan said not to worry, he would take care of it. He arranged for a car and a driver to meet us at the ferry at Woods Hole and take us back to Boston. I mentioned that we had not eaten anything and Jon said he would take us where they had ready-made sandwiches and we could eat on the noon ferry. Sure enough, we made it on time. Since I couldn’t handle all our luggage, Jon took some of it and locked it up at the station until we could come back for the car and we could pick it up then. He walked me through a most difficult and stressful time and he stayed by my side the entire morning helping me to put one foot in front of the other.

I will always be grateful to officer Jonathan Searle. What a guy!

Doris LeBlanc
Waltham