WQOW TV: Eau Claire, WI NEWS18 News, Weather, and SportsHeart attack survivor tells hunters to take aspirin into woods

Heart attack survivor tells hunters to take aspirin into woods

Black River Falls (WQOW) - As many hunters head out to the woods this Saturday for the start of the nine-day gun deer hunt, one hunter is thankful he's alive for this season.

Nick Kampen was dragging a buck he had shot back to his house last December when something went terribly wrong.

"It was a nice eight pointer, about 17 inches wide, beautiful buck," says Kampen.

So Kampen grabbed his bow, took aim and released.

"I was just walking towards the house and all of a sudden, it was just like, I don't know what the feeling was, I had never had it before," he says.

Kampen was having a heart attack and he needed help fast.

"I went and had two adult aspirin and then I called the ambulance and then they came," he recalls.

The ambulance brought him to the hospital in Black River Falls. Doctors told him he needed to get to Luther Hospital in Eau Claire. Mayo One was called but couldn't fly because of a snowstorm.

"It started snowing harder and harder and that night we got about 18 inches," says Kampen.

By sheer luck, Mayo One had been forced to land at Black River Memorial Hospital where Kampen was waiting.

"Everything was just kind of, you know, lucky. I was fortunate everything kind of fell in place," says Kampen. 

Mayo One nurses went with Nick by ambulance to Eau Claire where he was operated on immediately.

"They said that the aspirin is probably what helped me get that far," he adds. 

Kampen never imagined this would happen to him but he's glad he was prepared.

"You never know when this stuff's going to happen. That taught me. I didn't think anything was going to happen to me," he says.

And he has a tip for hunters this season.

"If you would have told me this a year ago, 'naw, I don't need it' but anybody about 50 years old, it wouldn't hurt to carry a three cent aspirin along," says Kampen.