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Thinking back, Carl Hicks wonders if he planned "to do
myself in" the day he defied doctors' orders and pulled the old lawn
mower out of his backyard shed. He hadn't mowed 50 feet when it happened. His knees went out.
His body fell limp. Everything he saw "was like looking through frosted
glass." A history of mounting heart problems had come to this. Maybe he figured this ending was better than being stuck in his
house, told not to lift anything heavier than his shoes, "feeling myself
getting big and fat," while his wife mowed the front yard on a hot
summer day. With the motor roaring in his ears, Hicks reached over to turn
off the mower. He grabbed the spark plug by mistake. Zap! Telling the story, Hicks raises his eyes and cracks a perplexed
smile, same as he did that day when he sat in the unmowed grass. "Everything cleared up bright like it is now." Twenty years later, at 91, Hicks points to that moment as the
inspiration for the invention he believes has kept his heart beating longer
than anyone thought possible. Behold his box. It sits there on his coffee table in Across the top, handwritten letters in black marker say,
"Heart Shocker." Doctors warn that homemade heart shockers are unreliable,
probably ineffective and potentially dangerous. But that hasn't stopped Hicks
from believing in the stuff in his box: modified portions of that old Western
Auto lawn mower and its potent spark plug. The crank attaches to the mower's starter. It spins the magneto
that creates the charge that ignites the spark plug. An electric cord from a
household iron attaches to the spark plug wire. Another connects to a bolt on
the side of the motor for grounding. Whenever he feels those ominous palpitations -- or sometimes
just for good measure -- he grabs the hot line with his left hand and spins
the crank with his right, giving himself a good pop. Sometimes five or 10 in a row. Richard Bowles, Hicks' physician for some 30 years, can't
explain it. The retired doctor wouldn't actually recommend the box to anyone
-- medical devices should be tested and calibrated, after all -- but he
believes it has done wonders for Hicks and his irregularly beating heart. "He had a heart condition that I thought would not bring
him a long life," Bowles said. "I almost thought it was a
witchcraft thing. I was torn between disbelief and acceptance." More than 15 years have passed since David Steinhaus heard
Hicks' tale, but the cardiologist hasn't forgotten it. Of course he
remembers, Steinhaus said, laughing. "What a story." Steinhaus, executive medical director of the Mid America Heart
Institute at St. Luke's Hospital, already had a deep interest in the
sometimes bizarre history of electrical stimulation when Hicks gave him a box
of his own. Steinhaus pulled out his box and tried to crank out a charge. It
responded like an old convertible that's been sitting too long under a tarp. "I used it as a doorstop," Steinhaus said. The cardiologist hasn't prescribed the box for any of his
patients, nor does he plan to. A homemade device, if it were actually strong
enough to pace the heart, could possibly cause fibrillation, he said. But he loves the box, he said, or at least the idea of
the box. Technological advances in medicine such as automatic
defibrillators and pacemakers are products of Hicks' kind of ingenuity, said
Steinhaus, who gives presentations on the history of the technology. When Charles Kite built an electrostatic generator and claimed
to have revived a child in 18th-century And Xavier Bichat was onto something when he stimulated the
muscles of headless cadavers delivered from the guillotine during the French
Revolution. "It was really important work," Steinhaus said. In its own way, Hicks' box connects with the mission of all
those who want to raise public awareness of the roughly 300,000 people in the
They all want to save lives, Steinhaus said. The spirit is the
same, even if the cardiologist doesn't exactly believe that the "heart
shocker" box is the way to go. Hicks' wife, Jean, believes the box works, but would never try
it herself. Nor would Elaine Lonborg, their daughter in "He used to try to get all of us to try it to see how
strong it was," she said. Hicks, who retired from the Armco steel factory in 1972, always
enjoyed tinkering in his workshop. He once built his own mower, and he rigged
wheels to his fishing boat so he could launch it without a dock. But the heart shocker might be his best work of all, his
daughter said. "We're all in awe that he'd come up with it," Lonborg
said. "It took us a while to accept that it was what was helping him,
but we feel like it saved his life." It all seems simple enough to Hicks. "I started with the hope that I would last another year so
I could fish some more," he said. What he's had is 20 years. In that time, he's seen six great-grandchildren. He and his wife
celebrated their 50th anniversary and are nearing their 57th. The 50 cedar trees that were 3-foot saplings when he planted
them along the back edge of his property 25 years ago now reach 50 feet into
the sky. The tulips and petunias he and his wife tend are making ready.
The ivy on their trellises is turning green again. And the backyard redbud is busting out in bloom. |
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