A bold green and yellow thank you

By RYAN DOSTALEK

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Photo

Photo by Al Hoch

Mike Lyman, left, who is a crew member for the Roush Fenway Racing team, talks to Dr. Christian Posner outside Mercy Hospital in Janesville on Monday, who did a cardiac catheterization on Lyman after he suffered a heart attack in Janesville in April 2007. Lyman, who is from Greenville, N.C., was passing through the area and wanted to thank all of the team members who helped him.

JANESVILLE — A bold green and yellow Ford Fusion covered in decals and toting stickers as headlights sat parked outside Mercy Hospital on Monday morning.

As a measure of gratitude, Mike Lyman, hauler for the Roush Fenway Racing team, brought Carl Edwards’ No. 60 NASCAR Nationwide Cup Series racecar to show off to hospital staff.

Lyman was first at the hospital in April 2007 after suffering a heart attack in his hotel room.

He had been in town showing off Edwards’ car at Blain’s Farm & Fleet before a race in Chicago.

An ambulance brought Lyman to the hospital, he said, where doctors performed quadruple bypass surgery.

“Everyone was so nice and took real good care of my wife and I,” Lyman said Monday morning as hospital staffers snapped photos in front of the racing machine.

Kenneth Wolnak, the cardiac surgeon who operated on Lyman, said the surgery was a “very conventional” bypass operation.

The only unusual aspect, he said, was that Lyman was 1,000 miles from his Greenville, N.C. home.

“Positive feedback is always appreciated,” Wolnak said. “Being an acute-care hospital, you don’t get opportunities to see a lot of people after they’re fully recovered.”

Lyman hugged and thanked each doctor and nurse who attended Monday’s gathering.

“I just wanted to try to keep in touch and come back and see everybody again,” he said.

Lyman said the car he brought to Janesville helped Edwards win the 2007 NASCAR Busch Series championship and most likely will be used at an upcoming race in Kansas City, Kan.