Posted on 05/02/2005 7:49:33 AM PDT by holymoly
ANDERSON, Ind. - A man who took up bicycling after bypass surgery gave him a second chance at life died of a heart attack the day after completing a 2,400-mile, cross-country trip.
Broc Bebout, a 57-year-old retired engineer, died Thursday on the van drive back to his home in Anderson, about 25 miles northeast of Indianapolis, one day after completing the bicycle ride from Carlsbad, Calif., to Brunswick, Ga.
His wife, Patricia Brinkman, said bicycling became Bebout's ticket to nearly 20 years of good health after quadruple-bypass surgery at age 39. He also learned to eat right and take care of himself, she said.
Bebout and another man closed their eyes for naps during the drive home after discussing heart rate monitors and other equipment, said Janech Davenport, director of Wandering Wheels, the cycling group that organized the trip.
The van driver later looked in the rearview mirror, and saw Bebout's eyes were open.
"He was struggling, not breathing," Davenport said. "His spirit was gone. Whatever made Broc was gone."
In an e-mail to his wife Wednesday before a celebratory steak dinner, Bebout described what the trip had meant to him: "An incredible experience with incredible people."
"It was a trip of a lifetime," Brinkman said. "We all have a list of things we like to say we did. That was right up there at the top."
Pat Miller, a retired Anderson University health professor who also was among about 30 people on the cross-country ride, said Bebout was taking medication for his heart and for arthritis and had been coughing for a couple of weeks.
"He had days he was very good and seemed strong, and he had days he felt like a lot of us did, slower, took longer to get in," Miller said.
The guy lives for nearly 20 years after bypass surgery, I think that would be considered successful by any measure, and is sounds like he LIVED his life..
Too bad...I love biking.
I started walking, then running, then riding a bike, now I have worked my way up to driving.
Maybe he should have ridden back.
Jim Fixx PING.
Didn't seem like he was well recently. Good that he got to complete something that he loved doing shortly before passing away.
Birdie:
There are chicks just ripe for some kissin'
And I mean to kiss me a few!
Then those chicks don't know what they're missin',
I got a lot of living to do!
Sizzlin' steaks all ready for tastin'
And there's Cadillacs all shiny and new!
Gotta move, cause time is a-wastin',
There's such a lot of livin' to do!
Kim:
There are men of nineteen or twenty
Who are suave and reckless and true
Older men who give a girl plenty
I've gotta a lot of livin' to do
Birdie:
There's music to play,
Places to go, people to see!
Everything for you and me!
There's music to play,(You know it, you know it!)
Places to go, people to see!
Everything (Yeah!)
For you and me!
All:
Oh, Life's a ball
if only you know it
And it's all just waiting for you
You're alive,
So come on and show it
We got a lot of livin'
Such a lot of livin'
Got a lot of livin' to do!
**********
The gift of 20 years is pretty amazing. Still, 57 is too young. Sad.
That reminds me, I gotta get off my a$$ and go do something.
Poor guy.
That he died on the way home is a little strange... most of the time we find 'em dead in the tent in the morning.
I figure that I'll probably die after a heart attack while bicycling too... but mine will be causes when another double-bottomed gravel haulter roars past me, missing me by only a foot or two.
Tim,
1500 miles or so a year on the bike
"Sounds like he pushed himself too hard."
Not at all.
What happens is that one of the arteries rupture, sending a clot to something that shouldn't be blocked. Those fatty deposits in the arteries don't go away, and they sit there like a time bomb, waiting to tear away. That's why you sometimes get someone dying of a heart attack in spite of good exercise habits.
Face it... you're not gonna get outta this life alive. This guy would consider himself lucky... blessed... including the part where he died after that ride.
Well his heart already took a beating from the earlier problems. An extra 20 years after a bypass performed in the early 1980s isn't too shabby. Heart medicine improves every day.
"Bebout was taking medication for his heart and for arthritis and had been coughing for a couple of weeks"
Uh oh --- arthritis medication?
1. I'm typing this from Anderson, Indiana (his home). Not returning isn't such a bad thing ;)
2. He was out there riding a bike while the rest of us here in Anderson are at our jobs. Good for him.
When the news of his death was announced, I nodded and offered my humble opinion to a family gathering that over-doing the jogging thing might actually be bad for one's health.
I was immediately pounced upon by my in-laws --all over whom were exercise fanatics. And all of whom took great offense. Boy, was I ever in the dog house after criticizing one of the sacraments of the baby-boom generation!
Now those in-laws have had to give most vigorous exercise --after ruining their knees through too much jogging-- and I'm betting I'll have the last laugh by living to 95.
True. In the last week a friend who just turned 50 had a heart attack-so far, she's doing fine. My brother, who also just turned 50 had three stents (sp?) put in after it was found that his arteries were almost completely blocked. If he hadn't fallen and broken his shoulder, the doctors might not have spotted the problem in time. It really is amazing how far we have come in treating heart disease. We still have a long way to go, though.
Look, as the old saying goes, we are all alloted just so many heart beats in a life time. When we make our heart beat fast we use them up fast. So, in the words of the great medical sage, Satchel Page, "the secret is to go through life shuffling and jangling."
Better to wear out than rust out...
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