02.22.2004 - First Sign Of A Problem

On 02.22.2004, I was on-duty as a police officer and took a report of a domestic violence call at my department's headquarters. I went to interview a possible witness to the incident. I went to the house where the witness lived and felt light headed while at the door, but brushed it off as no big deal. I made voice contact with the person inside the residence and the next thing I knew I was picking myself up off the threshold of the doorway for the residence and wondering how I ended up on the ground. The occupant of the residence was on the phone with dispatch informing them that an officer was down at their residence. I realized that I must have lost consciousness. Dispatch called me over the air and was confused when I responded despite the information that they had an officer down. I got on the phone with dispatch and told them I guess I must have passed out or something. I felt fine afterwards and did not feel the need for any additional units to respond to my location, but my supervisor insisted that units respond to see what was going on. I was probably out for a minute or so total. An ambulance took me to the hospital and they didn't find any problems with me. They discharged me that evening with restrictions on my driving abilities until further follow-up was performed. One of my friends from work drove me home that night. Later, I saw my physician and he presumed that it was a heart related problem since most loss of consciousness incidents are related to heart related problems. I wore a heart monitor for 24 hours with no unusual results and then was later referred to a cardiologist for just about every follow-up test related to the heart and my heart checked out just fine.