Longtime community servant Kevin Walsh could use some help
by Bill Davis | News Editor
For more than the past two decades, Kevin Walsh has poured himself into serving West Ashley as the executive director of the St. Andrew’s Parks and Playgrounds Commission, which includes facilities on Playground Road and off Sam Rittenberg Boulevard.
Walsh has helped run programs that have touched the daily lives of thousands of locals, ranging from summer camps and rec baseball to yoga and Japanese Taiko drumming classes.
But all of that nearly came to an end last month when Walsh, almost 57, suffered a massive heart attack on a flight leaving Dallas bound for Charlotte where he’d gone to lead computer training.
As of the end of the month, Walsh had received a heart pump at Baylor Medical Center, so he could return home and await an expensive heart transplant.
Walsh’s commission colleague Frank Stefan was seated next time to him when Walsh become terribly ill and barely communicative. Walsh was experiencing chest pains and numbness in his left arm, classic signs of a coronary problem.
Luckily, Stefan says there were some medical professionals onboard who worked with flight attendants to administer oxygen and medicine.
“After a few minutes, one of them said he would not make it to Charlotte, and to turn the plane around to Dallas, which they did,” says Stefan, who went on to praise the level and care Walsh was given.
After a short stay at a nearby hospital, Stefan says the decision was made to move Walsh to the “mothership” at Baylor, where Walsh would get even better care.
Stefan stayed three days, waiting until Walsh’s wife, Nancy, two of his sisters, and his son had assembled.
That whole time, Walsh had been placed into a medically induced coma to lessen the strain on his body.
Nancy Walsh says that he started to experience organ failure, but that doctors felt sure that he would soon recover kidney function, which he did and paved the way for the installation of the pump.
The heart attack was especially surprising to Nancy, as Kevin’s family has no history of heart issues, and his love for the outdoors. Additionally, she says, he had just gone for bloodwork because his brother had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
When Nancy had a spare moment from Walsh’s side, she was busy arranging more trips for family members, as well as setting up online pages dedicated to his recovery. Nancy makes regular posts to Facebook to keep everyone informed.
A Gofundme.com effort started by Nancy’s daughter had raised $35,000 in just five days, with a goal of $150,000. On top of medical costs, neither Walsh will be able to work for months as Kevin convalesces, and their two children will need care.
A website, www.newheartforkevin.com, will redirect browsers back to the Gofundme page.
Good news was soon followed by some bad news from the insurance. His stay and heart procedures, including the transplant, would be largely covered by the commission’s insurance carrier.
But, it would not cover the cost of “harvesting” the heart, says Commission chair Mike Eykyn, who’s been serving almost the same amount of time as Walsh. “And that costs $120,000 at Baylor,” says Eykyn.
But now that Walsh has the pump installed, he can travel back to Charleston and recive the transplant at an “in-network” hospital, which could cut some of the cost of the donor acquisition and care,
Going forward, Eykyn has appointed chief financial officer Susan Klugman as Walsh’s interim replacement, and will regularly return to discuss his health at commission meetings. But, he stresses, the commission is not looking for a replacement.
“It’s just like in sports, when the big star goes down, everyone else has to step up.” Says Eykyn, who went on to praise the work staff is doing to cover all its bases. “Kevin does a lot around here.”
Under Walsh’s direction, St. Andrew’s Parks has earned the state’s Agency of the Year award in its class four times, and “Sports Illustrated” recognized it as one of the top recreation agencies in the country.
And hopefully, Walsh will be soon back at it for years to come.
