Source: The Myrtle Beach Sun-News
As a longtime golf course superintendent, Fred Meda felt like he had died and gone to heaven when he had the opportunity to work at Augusta National Golf Club during the Masters Tournament for six years from 1996-2001.
He was half right.
Meda, a superintendent with the Myrtle Beach National Company for nearly 30 years until his retirement earlier this year, began working as a volunteer during the Masters five years after he was pronounced dead by a paramedic.
Meda, 61, has used his second lease on life to make changes and make a difference.
The changes are in his life, as he's spent more time with his family, become more health conscious and done things he's enjoyed, such as working as part of a 106-person maintenance staff at Augusta. The difference is in the lives of others, as he's embarked on a crusade to educate those in his profession on the dangers of job stress and the importance of having employees trained with life-saving skills.
"We're looking at about 14 years of a different person," said Meda's wife, Carol. "That kind of thing obviously changes your life."
Meda was taking a long weekend, which in those days amounted to a vacation, in the mountain town of Jefferson, N.C., in March of 1991. Myrtle Beach National had just taken over Long Bay, Litchfield Country Club, River Club and Willbrook Country Club, and Meda was overseeing maintenance on all of the company's courses.
His wife was stopped at a red light when Meda went into cardiac arrest. He was pulled from the car to the sidewalk, where a passing nurse administered CPR for several minutes on the unresponsive man before the rescue squad arrived. "This was the big one," Meda said.
Emergency medical technicians hit him three times with a defibrillator, as they're instructed to do, but could not revive him.
"One of the rescue paramedics said, 'He's gone,'" Carol recalled. "Another one of them said, 'One more time, one more time.' The one more time was the miracle. He's a miracle walking."
Meda needed to be revived a few more times during a helicopter ride to a Charlotte heart center, as Carol and the couple's crying 10-year-old son, Nicholas, were driven by witnesses on the scene to the center, and his daughter, Kim, drove from Myrtle Beach.
"I don't remember a helicopter ride," Meda said. "I don't remember four days."
He spent 18 days at Carolinas Medical Center before being released in a weak and frail state.
"It was a drastic change for him when it first happened," Carol said. "He couldn't walk down a hallway when he left the hospital."
Clay Brittain, who hired Meda in 1977 from a course in Charlotte, held his job until he could return to work part-time six months after the heart attack. He eventually became a full-time employee again, but one with a new perspective.
He started spending more time with his family, and believing his job's hours and stress contributed to his heart attack, and less time worrying about work. He used to arrive at the golf course around 5:30 a.m. and leave around dark. Kim said while growing up she usually saw him at her sporting events but seldom saw him otherwise.
"You talk about stress," Meda said. "One [spring] day I got up, took my shower, got dressed, walked outside and thought, 'God it's cold.' I looked down and didn't have my pants on. Now that's stress."
Kim, a 34-year-old EMT, said Meda now is never more than a call away if she needs help with his grandson. And he has reacted differently to problems at work since the heart attack.
When the King's North course was being rebuilt in 1997 and all 18 holes were uprooted, 20 inches of rain in July washed out everything. "During construction we were further ahead in June than we were August 1. We lost ground," Meda said. "Normally I would have been so uptight I probably would have smoked two packs of cigarettes a day and had a couple of gin and tonics. When it rained, I realized I couldn't do anything about it. Instead of taking it personally and apologizing, I didn't. I had a totally different outlook on life."
Meda says stress in golf course maintenance is the result of pressures to provide an exquisite playing surface 12 months a year. The pressure Meda put on himself as a perfectionist added to his stress.
"The stress today of a golf course superintendent is just very difficult," Meda said. "The demands, playing conditions, number of rounds, the expectations. It's sometimes very, very difficult to deliver that product year-round."
Meda, a native of Litchfield, Conn., who began caddying at the age of 9 and working on a maintenance crew at 13, tallied the results of surveys he handed out at Myrtle Beach National on absenteeism and tardiness, and found smokers - a group he was among years before his heart attack - and overweight workers were the worst offenders. He began programs to help workers stop smoking, and has given numerous presentations regarding health at superintendent conferences, hoping to get at least one person to identify symptoms of a problem and consult a doctor.
Within a year of his heart attack, Meda said a minimum of 10 to 12 people per Myrtle Beach National course were trained in CPR. "It's been used, and it's been used successfully," Meda said.
Current company director of golf course maintenance Max Morgan has picked up where Meda left off, orchestrating blood drives and holding safety meetings. "He's trying to get the crews healthier," Meda said. "If you're healthy, you do a better job."
Meda now has a strict diet and regularly exercises, including cardiac rehab an hour a day, three days a week at Conway Wellness Center, where he gets his heart rate to 120 beats per minute and maintains that for 45 minutes on the stairmaster, treadmill and rowing machine.
He had a pacemaker inserted four years ago after he suffered heart palpitations, and a total of four stents inserted on two different occasions to avoid bypass surgery.
"I get a flat tire and [my doctor] pumps me up, he keeps me going," Meda said. "I'm very fortunate to be in this medical technology or else I wouldn't be here today."
Meda is a part owner of Whispering Woods in Pinehurst, is a partner in the Fair Way Golf Management company that runs McCanless Golf Club in Salisbury, N.C., and is a consultant for Brandywine Bay in Morehead City, N.C. He travels to each facility about twice a month. In the past two years he's helped rebuild a couple greens and complete drainage work at McCanless, among other projects.
"I enjoy the travel, the less stress day to day. It's just much different," Meda said. "I'm still going to be in touch with [course maintenance]. I need it. I enjoy it. Even part of my second career, I'm still the superintendent.
"... I enjoy golf. It's all I know."
Though family now comes first and work second, Meda's never far from a fairway either.
"He's working himself to death still, but if he ever slows down I'll know there's a problem," Kim said. "I know how strong willed he is, and that's why I think he's still with us."
