MI Mayor Survives Heart Attack

Mercer Island Mayor Jim Pearman returned home Thursday, two days after suffering a massive heart attack.

Pearman's attack happened when a piece of plaque came loose and plugged his left anterior descending, or LAD, artery, causing his heart to starve for oxygen for 20 minutes.

“My surgeon, Dr. Fowler (at Overlake Hospital Medical Center) said they call that artery 'the widow-maker' because most people who have a heart attack with that (blockage) don’t often come back …. I’m very lucky to be alive.”

Pearman, who has been on the City Council for 10 years (four as mayor, six as deputy mayor), was driving home from rowing practice (Pearman rows crew competitively) on Tuesday morning when he said he felt a crushing, intense pain in his chest, and realized that he was having a heart attack. “If I would have pulled over to the side of the road, I’d not be here today,” he said. “It was critical to get to a hospital for surgery or the lights were going out.”

Though in great pain, Pearman drove off Interstate 90 directly to the North End Mercer Island Fire Station, where the firefighters rushed him to Overlake Hospital in Bellevue after giving him pain medication. “I had two surgeries and two stents put in my heart, which came as kind of a shock,” Pearman said. “I have done everything right; I’m in great physical shape, I don’t drink or smoke, and I’m young (Pearman is 53), but this can still happen to you when you have heredity causing cholesterol buildup in your heart. I have learned that if you have high cholesterol and they give you medication to lower it, take it!”

On Wednesday morning, Pearman said he was already up and feeling like nothing had happened to him. “I was hungry, and I was walking around the ICU and annoying the nurses,” he said. “I think they don’t see many people up and walking on that floor, so they sent me down to the cardiac unit.”

Pearman noted that having a child who will be a senior this fall at Mercer Island High school, and a child who will enter kindergarten in the fall motivates him to take it easy for awhile, take his medication and stay well.

He said he is very grateful for the care he received both on the island and at the hospital.  “There were a lot of people who worked as a team to take care of me—I am absolutely blessed to have gotten to the firefighters on the island—they saved my life.”

Pearman will start his rehabilitation session in two weeks, and noted that Mercer Island’s Deputy Mayor El Jahncke will serve in his stead on the City Council for the rest of June.

“I’ve rowed over 400,000 meters since January,” Pearman said, “so I have every intention of 100 percent recovery and getting back to rowing and competing …. I’m only 53, I have a long ways to go!”