Commentary

Reggie DuPee doesn’t consider himself a hero.

Du Pee, a former Oregon State football player, was just doing his job that day, just like any other day.

On that day, April 12, Mary Prevost said DuPee helped save her life.

Prevost had been in the Bay Area for six hours on a trip to see her newborn granddaughter when she started to feel sick.

Prevost has hereditary spastic paraplegia, a degenerative disease that causes spasticity in her legs. An implanted pump gives regular and controlled doses of a medication, Baclofen, to keep the symptoms in check.

She had surgery scheduled for a new pump on May 5 and figured nothing would go wrong in the meantime. Warning signs had gone unnoticed.

“You definitely don’t ever want it to fail,” Prevost said.

That night, it did.

She could not walk. Her thoughts were muddled. She was rushed to a hospital in El Camino then transferred to the ICU at Stanford University to get care from neurosurgeons familiar with similar cases.

Hospitals usually don’t have the pumps on hand, so someone had to bring one in and coach the surgeons through the implant process.

That’s DuPee’s job.

DuPee was a free safety for the Beavers from 1981-84. He finished his career with 196 tackles and three interceptions. He also competed for the track team as a hurdler, high jumper and member of the 400-meter relay team.

After leaving OSU, DuPee found himself in the health care industry, working as a financial manager for a long-term health care facility. He bounced from financial positions to sales before joining Medtronic eight years ago.

“It gave me the opportunity to help people,” DuPee said.

As a therapy consultant, DuPee works to develop pain management for patients with movement disorders often due to head or spinal cord injuries, stroke and cerebral palsy.

He’s called to emergency rooms to help implant the Medtronic devices.

“I kind of coach them through the procedure,” DuPee said. “It’s pretty complicated.”

DuPee got the call at about 3 p.m. Prevost had gone into withdrawal symptoms and they needed him. They had determined the type of pump required for replacement and he was the man who had to bring it in and work them through the surgery.

He was 200 miles from Stanford. He hit the road right away. He knew time was of the essence.

“The most important thing is patient safety,” he said. “Baclofen withdrawal can lead to respiratory arrest and sometimes death. In her case, it was pretty urgent that we replace the pump.”

DuPee arrived with the pump and by 1 a.m., it was in and Prevost was on her way to recovery.

He had noticed on Prevost’s identification card that Prevost was from Corvallis.

When he spoke to Prevost’s husband, Ron, after the surgery, DuPee discovered that she was an avid Beavers fan.

Prevost found out a little later.

“I never knew until I was out of the ICU and lucid again,” she said. “My husband said, ‘You won’t believe who was in ICU with you.’ ”

Although she knew she was in good hands at Stanford, the knowledge that DuPee was there was an added comfort.

“It was like I had an extra guardian angel in there with me,” she said. “It was awesome. It made it not so bad. I am such a Beaver nut. I love football and I love the Beavers.”

Prevost goes to all the home games and knows DuPee comes up occasionally from his home in Palo Alto. She wants to get together and thank him in person.

After all, he’s her hero. He’ll just have to accept that role.

“I know it’s his job, but it’s my life,” she said.

Kevin Hampton is a sports reporter and columnist for the Gazette-Times. He can be reached at kevin.hampton@lee.net