Tray Baggarly went to work at the Coweta County Fairgrounds and nearly left in an ambulance for the last time. The director of event services collapsed on the job from a near-fatal "widowmaker" heart attack, and for a long stretch it looked like he would not be coming back. A coworker trained in CPR kept him alive on the floor, and hospital teams later shocked his heart again and again until it finally started cooperating. The rescue stretched from the fairgrounds hallway to an ambulance bay to the cath lab at Piedmont Newnan, and locals say the chain of quick action turned what should have been certain death into a rare second chance.
According to FOX 5 Atlanta, Baggarly suffered a "widowmaker," a critical blockage of the left anterior descending artery, and was defibrillated 18 times in total: once at the fairgrounds, once in the ambulance and 16 times on the cath-lab table. He later returned to the hospital to thank the team, and Piedmont Newnan provided photos from his treatment. The hospital plans to honor the coworker who jumped in to save him with a community-hero award, and Coweta County officials told the station they will expand automated external defibrillators, or AEDs, in county-owned buildings.
On-scene rescue
"He got the AED off the wall, which hangs right outside my office, and... he worked on me for 20 or so minutes," Baggarly told FOX 5 Atlanta. The coworker credited with saving him is Alan Smith, a retired firefighter who grabbed the AED and performed continuous chest compressions until EMS arrived. Baggarly is listed as the fairgrounds' director of event services on the county site, and the fairgrounds' contact page shows the event office and general information for the Kiwanis Coweta County Fair, where the emergency unfolded.
Hospital response
Piedmont Newnan's cardiac team kept CPR going while rushing Baggarly into the cath lab, where interventional cardiologists worked to reopen the blocked artery. Piedmont Newnan Hospital lists a full cardiac program at its Poplar Road campus and serves as the county's primary acute-care facility. Clinicians said the persistence of bystanders, EMS and the cath-lab staff together created the slim window that allowed him to survive.
Why the odds were stacked
Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival remains low. National data place survival to hospital discharge for EMS-treated, non-traumatic cases at roughly 9%, according to the American Heart Association's statistical report. Rapid bystander CPR and early defibrillation are the strongest predictors of survival, and research finds that each minute without defibrillation can cut a person's chance of living by about 10%. Those realities help explain why Smith's immediate response and the hospital team's refusal to stop mattered so much.
What residents can do
Officials and health groups urge residents to learn Hands-Only CPR, know where nearby AEDs are located and sign up for short community training sessions. The American Red Cross offers courses and resources for CPR and AED use for lay rescuers. County and hospital leaders say placing more AEDs is an important start, but training and public awareness are what turn machines on the wall into real lifesavers.
