At the heart of this year’s Hospitals’ Lottery will be cardiac enhancements for four departments at Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre.
The Emergency, Cardiac Intensive Care, Inpatient Cardiology and Telemetry, and Inpatient Acute Stroke Units will benefit from 2015 lottery and Mega Bucks 50, launched on Friday at the grand prize home located at the new Loredo neighbourhood on the city’s southeast side.
For Colleen and Devin Cabelka and their family, who are from Bentley, the hospital’s cardiac and stroke care became extremely important.
In 2011, Devin ended up at the Red Deer hospital after becoming very ill and in a lot of pain.
He was in full body life-threatening sepsis. He had emergency surgery to aspirate his hip, which is where his pain was centred. He then went to ICU and recovered. It turned out that his infection had originated with a mouth-borne bacterium that they believe was related to an abscessed tooth that had never been extracted. After his illness, which took nine months to recover from, he did have the tooth removed.
Then, in 2012, Devin, at the age of 46, suffered another medical crisis, a stroke, and found himself back at the hospital in the excellent care of the many health-care professionals. He recovered again, and now at age 49, he has only a slight limp.
In January 2014, when the family was in the Cayman Islands on vacation, they received word from home that Colleen’s mother had stopped breathing and was in Red Deer hospital.
Prior to that, her mother had received extensive care at the hospital for a variety of medical issues and complications.
When the Cabelkas learned she had suffered an massive heart attack and was brain dead, they quickly decided to return home, hoping to get there to say goodbye before she died.
Doctors tried hard — they even administered chest compressions — to keep her alive until the family got there. Sadly, she passed away about half an hour before they arrived.
The family is very grateful for all the resources and professional staff at the hospital that helped both Devin and Colleen’s mother.
“We have had the best of care, in one of the best facilities, from some of the best medical professionals available. We are willing to advocate on behalf of this project in order to bring additional funds to further improve the facilities for Red Deer and surrounding areas,” said 46-year-old Colleen.
No other hospital in the Central Zone is as equipped to deal with cardiac emergencies.
The enhancements will cost $2 million and will be done in two phases, with 2015 being phase one.
Some of the improvements include cardiac monitors, hardwire monitor beds, and monitors that have heart rate and rhythm displays.
The $799,000 grand prize home is located at 86 Lazaro Close. It was built by Sorento Custom Homes and is the grandest dream home ever offered in the lottery’s 17-year history.
The show home hours are 1 to 5 p.m. daily from now until April 30. From May 1 to June 21, it will be open Wednesday to Sunday, from 1 to 5 p.m.
There are a total of 450 prizes, including vehicles, vacations and electronics. The prize value is $1,174,160.
The early bird draw prize is a 2015 Mazda 3GT, $500 Fas Gas card plus $50,000 cash, with the cutoff being June 7 at 11 p.m., and draw on June 23.
This is the second year for the Mega Bucks 50 raffle with a minimum jackpot of $90,000 (or 50 per cent of ticket sales, whichever is greater) available to one winner. Last year’s raffle paid out over $212,000. Both the regular lottery and the raffle sold out last year.
Single lottery tickets are $25, five for $100, or 15 for $250. Mega Bucks 50 raffle tickets are one for $10, 10 for $25 and 25 for $50.
Tickets are available at hospitalslottery.com or by calling 403-340-1878 or 1-888-808-9005 toll free.
The overall cutoff date for tickets is 11 p.m. on June 21 and the draw will take place on July 6.
For more information, go to hospitalslottery.com.