No Help For Heart Attack Victim

His name is Don, and he's 81 years old. That's all that's known of him, except for one other thing - on Tuesday, June 21, Don was having a heart attack, and pleaded for help, a plea that fell largely on deaf ears.

Photographer Bob Larson said he walked into the liquor store by the downtown Safeway on Tuesday when he overhead an elderly man pleading for the clerk to call 911 because he was having a heart attack.

"The clerk just basically blew him off," Larson said. "So the man went outside and sat down in 90-degree heat against the wall."

A clerk at Buon Aroma liquor store said on Friday that he was hesitant to call 911 because English is not his native language and that he asked a customer to help.

Larson called 911, and the man told him his name was Don. He said he had asked four other people to call for help, and was just ignored.

"It's hard to believe that people can just walk away from that," Larson said. "How hard is it to call 911?"

The paramedics came and admistered help, taking Don to county hospital. It's not known how he fared, since Larson never found out Don's last name. But at least one person out of five had a good night's sleep on Tuesday night.