HOUSTON — A Houston man has spent months searching for the person who saved his life.
Gene Velasquez, 55, collapsed while running at Memorial Park in June. He suffered a heart attack and was in cardiac arrest.
“It was a Friday morning. I was doing my daily routine stretching, went around the park and that’s all I remember,” he said.
He spent the next five days in a coma.
“Gene’s heart stopped. He was clinically dead. The odds of someone surviving are very, very low. Probably around 7% of the time,” said Dr. Ben Bobrow with UTHealth Houston and Memorial Hermann.
Paramedics told his medical team that a good Samaritan called 911 and did CPR until an ambulance arrived.
Velasquez has been going to the Memorial Park running trail several times a week since August hoping whoever helped recognizes him and says hello.
“Words cannot express what I would want to say to them. They stopped and saved my life,” Velasquez said. “There are good people out there still. I kind of want to meet some good people.”