Pat Goggins nearly died that day.
On Jan. 26, Goggins, owner of P.A.Y.S. Auction Yard, suffered a heart attack while watching his grandson play basketball at Shepherd High School. Luckily for him, St. Vincent Healthcare nurse Kristin Lepley was working in the concessions stand. She and others performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Goggins until he was flown by helicopter to St. Vincent Healthcare.
"I really feel like anyone would have stood up and started CPR on him," Lepley said.
Goggins, 77, spent 17 days in the St. Vincent Healthcare New Hope Rehabilitation Center and, as attendees of Friday morning's Public Auction Yards bull sale can attest, he's back to his old self.
"It was 17 days that I was in New Hope," Goggins said in a speech at the Vermillion Ranch Spring Auction. In honor of those 17 days, he donated Lot 17, a bull sired by Danny Boy, to New Hope and St. Vincent's cardiovascular wing. "As much as they've done for me and my family, we wanted to help them."
In the speech that prompted a jest from his son, auctioneer Joe Goggins, reminding him that air-time cost $4,000 a minute, Goggins thanked the staff at St. Vincent Healthcare for its help in his recovery.
"The first thing they teach people is to want to," he said. "They want to get better and they want to live."
Before the auction, Goggins relaxed in his wood-paneled office, surrounded by cowboy sculptures, friends and family. Many of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren were in attendance.
Former Sen. Conrad Burns stopped by to pay him a visit.
"If you hadn't asked us Lutherans to pray for you, you wouldn't be here today," Burns joked. "You sure were suffering when I saw you at the hospital. I saw you and I thought, for a man who wants to live to be 100, you're sure picking a funny way to go about it."
While Goggins was recovering from his heart attack, he and his family received a lot of support in the form of prayer. At the next Shepherd High School basketball game, the team members knelt in a circle and prayed for Goggins' recovery, said his wife, Babe.
It's not just the support that Goggins remembers from his stay at New Hope. It was the feeling he got, the inspiration the staff there gave him.
"They bring out the want-to in you," he said. "God puts the want-to in people and they really exemplify it."
And what Goggins wanted to do was give back to the people who helped save his life.
"If they save your life, you owe them something back," he said. "That's just how it is."
So at the auction, Lot 17, now named Vermillion DB (Danny Boy) New Hope, was sold twice, with all proceeds going to St. Vincent Healthcare. The bull was first bought by Goggins' son, Joe, the auctioneer, for $5,500. He immediately donated New Hope back to the auction yard and put him up for sale again, where he went for $5,750 to Warren and Sherry Thompson of Lander, Wyo.
Goggins will write a check for the total amount, and that money will go to St. Vincent Healthcare.
"Mom, make sure he writes the check," Joe Goggins kidded.
During the auction, it was also announced that US Bank is donating a defibrillator to Shepherd High School to be kept on site.
"We have chosen Shepherd High School in honor of Pat Goggins," said Pat Capser with US Bank. "Having experience that day in late January, when we thought we lost Pat, and seeing him here today, I know that miracles do happen."
One of those miracles was Goggins' generosity.
"I'm very close to the family," Lepley said. "I think Pat was so generous in donating Lot 17 to St. Vincent Healthcare. I wanted to be here to support him and his family."
Goggins wouldn't think he's being generous, just passing on that spirit of "want-to."
"It's due to all of these people for their caring, the staff at that hospital," he said. "I've never seen so many people so caring."
