NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: MAPLE LEAFS v HURRICANES

May 23, 2002

Ken Dryden

KEN DRYDEN: Pat Quinn was released from the Toronto General Hospital at about 4:30, and he came here to the Air Canada Centre, and tonight, he will be behind the bench coaching the Toronto Maple Leafs. It is something that, as we talked about yesterday, was a possibility, but it was considered very unlikely. To take you through the last 24 hours and where we were 24 hours ago and where we are today and how we got here, Dr. Darrell Ogilvie-Harris will speak.

DR. OGILVIE-HARRIS: As you all know, Pat was admitted to Toronto Western Hospital with a chest condition and underwent quite extensive investigations, and it turned out the problem was an arrhythmia of his heart, and then he was subsequently transferred to Toronto General Hospital. And at that point he came under the expert hands of Dr. Rouleau, who is the director of the unit for the hospital and also for Mt. Sinai Hospital. Over the past 24 hours Pat has shown an absolutely remarkable recovery. He's tough, he's strong, he's determined, but he's in the hands of some of best care you can get in North America, and indeed, the world, and that accounts for his dramatic response. I'm going to let Dr. Rouleau fill you in with the actual details of that.

DR. ROULEAU: He did come in very ill two nights ago, and yesterday was he was still quite ill, but he has rallied beyond our expectations. This morning what we thought was not possible yesterday or was unthinkable, and I had told him that, that there was no question of it, he rallied so much in the last 24 hours that we felt that it was safe for him to come and do this. The job is not done. It's not finished. He's going to come back to the hospital after, and we have more work to do to get him back 100%. But we think that it's safe for him to come here to night, to do this, and we are supporting him to do that.

DR. ROULEAU: Well, put yourself in my spot. I worked my whole life to get to the position that I'm in, and if he has anything, even a little dizzy spell, I'll become famous as "the doctor that blew it for Pat Quinn." So I would not do this if there was any kind of a risk. Because even anything that happens to him tonight, it would be very tough on my reputation. Pat has been a very good patient. I told him yesterday that there was absolutely no question of him doing this today. We reassessed it because of the progress that was beyond our expectations. Sometimes that happens. When you have a patient that's got a cardiac problem, sometimes they respond better than you hoped and sometimes they don't; and he responded better than we hoped.

DR. ROULEAU: He's not a poster boy for it. I expect that he will be in six months and everybody will be pointing to him and saying, you know what, we should do like him to get in top shape. But there's still work to be done. He would not be here if it was dangerous, and he didn't force anybody. He's been an excellent patient.

DR. OGILVIE-HARRIS: If we felt that he required medical attention here in the Air Canada Centre, he would not be here. There's no way we are going to take a chance with a man's life or his heart or something like that. It's just not possible. I said to Dr. Rouleau to come in as my guest, you are the person that's looked after Pat and he's going to stand with me and that's what his job is.

DR. OGILVIE-HARRIS: Can't tell you that now. We'll have to ask Pat that later on when he becomes a poster boy and becomes a model of clean living and becomes a health icon, and then you can ask him those questions. DR. ROULEAU: Well, I told him that we were going to ask him to do something very drastic, and that's have a healthy lifestyle, like we try to do, but don't do. I don't think there's anybody in this room that does it as well as they would like to. He's going to do what he has to to be 100% and not have to worry about heart disease or heart problems. One of the things that probably you should know is if you take 100 people who are 59, every one of them has some kind of arteriosclerosis or something. I do, I'm sure. It's normal. That's not his problem. But we all have it. None of us are perfect, and he's just like any one of us. He's just got an arrhythmia problem right now that we can handle, and it's under control right now. We have not quite finished the job, but it's going extremely well.

DR. ROULEAU: I don't think anybody should smoke cigars and I don't think anybody here should do it. He's no different and I told him that. He's no different from anybody else. But I expect him to be 100% and to come back 100%.