How Tim Russert Saved My Life

TV producer Michael Bicks considered himself pretty healthy for a 50-something guy. But lying in bed to recover from an unusually exhausting bike ride, his thoughts turned to Tim Russert, who died of a heart attack with no forewarning. Hours later, Bicks was on an operating table for a stent implantation—having quite possibly cheated death.

"Like almost every middle-age man, I had taken a very personal interest" in Russert's death, Bicks writes in the New York Times. Like Russert, Bicks had suffered a heart attack without noticing: in his case, a bit of plaque in an artery had developed into a massive blood clot. "Because at the right moment I thought of Tim Russert," says Bicks, "I am one of the lucky ones." (Read more heart attack stories.)