Veteran area broadcaster Larry Weir survives heart attack on golf course with help from longtime playing partners

May 26-Veteran Spokane-area broadcaster Larry Weir doesn't remember anything about the events of May 18.

"That's probably a good thing," he said just a week later. "I don't think I want to remember anything about it."

He doesn't remember waking up, showering or eating, or even driving to the golf course to meet his usual playing partners. He doesn't remember paying for his round in the pro shop or going back into the clubhouse to throw up just before starting the round.

He doesn't remember teeing off or walking up to his second shot.

And he certainly doesn't remember suffering a massive heart attack standing above his ball there on the golf course, falling face first into the rough of the first hole at Downriver Golf Course.

He also doesn't remember the lifesaving heroics of his playing partners - and very good friends - Curly Rousseau, Gary Greenslit and Mike Ekins, who raced to his aid, called 911 and performed CPR until first responders were able to reach him, resuscitate him and get him to Sacred Heart for surgery.

"I have zero memory of anything until Wednesday, when I can vaguely remember that visitors came to the hospital," Weir said. "I remembered a little bit more on Thursday, but still not very much. I'm confused as to who maybe came in, you know, Thursday, who came in Friday. I remember people there, but I don't ... I can't track who was here and when."

Weir suffered an acute ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction , which is a severe, life-threatening type of heart attack caused by a total blockage of a coronary artery. The condition requires immediate emergency medical intervention to restore blood flow and minimize permanent heart muscle damage.

He had "at least" three stents implanted, though his memory is hazy, of course.

"I was dead for a while," he said succinctly.

Part of Weir's memory loss can be attributed to the nature of trauma on a human brain and body. Part of it was the medically induced coma he was in for nearly 48 hours, while his body was submersed in cold packs to help prevent organ failure.

But the scariest part was that his brain was deprived of oxygen for several minutes while his heart was stopped.

"That's what I'm mainly concerned about," he said. "Looking forward to football in 2026 is, you know, how quick am I going to remember things? How quick am I going to know that so-and-so is No. 2, and this guy is No. 14, and this guy is No. 17. Is it going to be like it was, where it's quick, or is it going to be 'That's 2 - who is 2?' and I'm searching the roster because I can't remember who No. 2 is?"

That's a problem for three months down the road.

"But it comes fast, I think," Weir said. "Just with the improvement that I've seen, you know, just here in the last day, I'm optimistic that everything's going to be fine."

For now, Weir - two weeks shy of 65 - is taking things slowly, per doctor's orders. He's walking up to 150 or so paces on flat ground in one direction, then returning. He "made the mistake of taking a shower" on his own the other day, and was so exhausted from it he "unplugged everything, got rid of the computer, I got rid of the phone, I turned the lights off in the room, and I just sat there, and I stretched a little bit.

"It's been difficult, and it will continue to be difficult, I think, for a little while."

Weir said he was scheduled to fill in for Mike Boyle on a few Spokane Indians home broadcasts in a couple of weeks. But that, obviously, is up in the air at this point.

"I don't know if I (physically) can get to the press box," he said. "They may have to find another guy."

But all things considered, Weir is a remarkably lucky guy. Since he lives alone, works alone and travels a lot for his job, he was extremely fortunate that when he became incapacitated, he did so among friends - and that those friends had previous certification in CPR.

"I'm just glad we were there," Rousseau said. "If this had happened a half-hour sooner, or before he left home, he'd have died in his apartment and who knows how long it would have taken someone to find out."

"Just took over"

Rousseau, who retired in 2025 from North Central after a long career as a high school coach, was CPR certified through coaching. Greenslit, a retired electrician, was certified through work. Both men took turns on chest compressions as Ekins was on the line with 911, receiving instructions until paramedics could reach the scene.

"I was standing on the edge of the fairway, and I heard kind of a clanking noise," Greenslit said. "I looked over, and I saw Larry was down, but I thought he, you know, tripped or something like that, and I kind of yelled at him. But I could see he was in trouble. So I yelled at Curly and Mike, and they both came over there."

"We go to hit our second shots, and I'm in the woods on the other side of the fairway," Rousseau said. "Ekins yelled at me, 'Larry just went down.' I looked across the fairway and Larry was just laying there. I came running across, and we looked down, and it was ... it was quite frightening. I mean, it didn't even look like Larry. The only way I can describe it is he looked like a wax museum figure of Larry."

"There's someone you know and are friends with," Greenslit said. "It's tough to see him struggling. All you can do is just keep doing the most you can do to try to keep him going."

Once they got Weir on his back, they tried to get a response or a pulse, and finding neither their training just took over.

"I'd like to think I was probably a little calm," Rousseau said. "I guess I kind of took over - that's kind of what I do sometimes. But I'm sure if you heard the 911 recording, I'm probably a little more panicked than what I thought I was. But at the time I just knew 'We've got to do this.' "

Eventually someone from the pro shop brought a defibrillator, but the men couldn't get it working correctly. So they continued with chest compressions until the fire department, first on the scene, could take over.

Rousseau and Greenslit estimate they did chest compressions for at least 10 minutes. Weir was unresponsive the entire time.

Once EMT arrived on the scene, they administered what the men thought was epinephrine and other medications, and shocked Weir's heart at least three times before they could detect a pulse once again.

"The emotional part was probably gone inside of 30 seconds when I went over there. It pretty quickly became 'We need to save a life,' " Rousseau said. "The emotional part kicked in again when they finally found a pulse, and they were going to put him onto the ambulance, then it kicked in again - and then I just lost it."

"I know everybody's got an expiration date, but I don't like to ... I really don't like to dwell on it," Greenslit said. "But something like this, it does bring it kind of to the forefront, that you know that it could happen at any time to anybody. Me, you, could happen to anybody, and it does bring (it) that to a point."

The EMTs loaded Weir into the ambulance and whisked him to Sacred Heart. Rousseau rode with the responding police to the hospital, where he was met by Lori Rousseau, Curly's wife. Greenslit and Ekins gathered the golf gear and went home to stay by their phones.

"I was a little relieved because the ball was in somebody else's court then, and they were doing a really good job," Greenslit said. "You do feel responsible, when it's all starting and happening. And then when somebody else gets to take over, and he's at least breathing, it just ... it felt good."

Surgery took several hours, and since Weir has no immediate family in the area the hospital allowed the Rousseaus to be their primary point of access.

"Lori and I stayed there for the next, I don't know how many hours," Curly Rousseau said. "We called people that - just a few calls, just a handful really. Because, I mean, it's Larry - it's going to get out. And I said by noon half of Spokane is going to know anyway."

The next morning, Weir - despite being heavily sedated - was responsive to commands.

"We knew at that point he was going to make it," Curly Rousseau said.

Road to recovery

"I consider myself exceptionally fortunate to have had this happen where it happened, where I was around people, and the people that I was around knew what they were doing, and were able to get me the help that I needed," Weir said.

He has a long road of recovery ahead of him, as much as that may frustrate a man who is fiercely independent. His heart and head both need to heal - along with everything else that might go along with that. It will take weeks for him to feel completely confident in carrying his weight around as he walks. It'll be months for his stamina to return to his new normal.

He will have more doctor visits and cardiac rehab and occupational and physical therapy. But he won't have to go through it alone.

The Rousseaus, who have known Weir through their EWU connection for more than 25 years, have opened their home up to Weir while he convalesces. They have an RV in the driveway that Weir will have full use of once he's ready for a little more independence. They are in it "for the long haul," Lori Rousseau said.

"(Lori) is taking care of Larry now," Curly Rousseau said. "And she loves Larry, like we all do, but she's just been an absolute rock in this whole thing."

There was no hesitation. And they really wouldn't have it any other way.

"I knew it would be Dave and Freida (Cook), or Todd and Shawn Claypool, or Curly and I would probably be the ones that would help afterwards, and I'm sure he has a much greater group of people who would have been willing to do it," Lori Rousseau said. "I think I started saying, 'You know, when Larry gets out of the hospital ...' and Curly was like, 'I've already thought of that,' so we were completely on the same page."

"Once it sounded like he was going to be ready to leave the hospital, we just said, 'Well, when it's time, let us know, and we'll bring you home,' " Curly Rousseau said. "And you know, we don't know if you have to stay with us for a week or a month. We don't care. We told him we're not letting him go, and he knows Lori's not gonna let him. You slack off, she'll come after you."

"He looks better than he did yesterday. And he'll look better tomorrow," Lori Rousseau said. "The thing with him, and he has verbalized it, is, 'I'm so over this.' But he's out walking, like he should, and he hasn't tried to leave the property or anything. ... He wants it all back right now. He's just doing a little more each day, so he probably doesn't feel like he's making great strides, except that he's not using the same baseline the whole way.

"He's young enough to be my little brother, but he's not young enough to be my son. I'm trying just to sort of monitor a little bit, but not interfere. ... I really just want him to feel so much better."

Weir is on the mend, so Curly Rousseau allowed himself to get back on the golf course over the weekend. It was both a relief and a bit of exorcising the demons the group faced as he teed off on the hole that almost claimed one of his best friends not even a week before. Weir suffered the physical toll ; Rousseau and the others bore more of the emotional brunt.

"Just going by there on that first hole, when we went by, I just kind of stopped and looked. We were right there," Curly Rousseau said. "And it took me a few holes to kind of recoup.

"A lot of times when I can't sleep, I don't count sheep. I'll go in my mind to a golf course and just play the course. Friday night in my mind, I went to Downriver, and I'm not making this up - I couldn't get past the first hole. I just kept going back to the tee box like Groundhog Day."

Now that Weir is back on his feet, he has had a chance for introspection. He knows there's no way to fully repay those that got him through this ordeal, or those continuing to help him. But he does have an idea on how to "pay it forward."

"I am going to get a CPR certification, so if I see this happen again with somebody else on a golf course, or if I'm with somebody that needs help, or whatever, I'm not the guy standing there with his hands on his temples, going, 'Oh my God, what are we going to do?' " he said. "I can be the guy that gets in there and chips in and helps this other guy out. That's the only thing I can do to try to square everything up, is to try to become an asset and not a liability."

"He's such an amazing man," Lori Rousseau said. "I think this was wonderful for him to understand the impact that he's had on so many lives and people who just care really deeply about him, and I think that's good. He's so humble, I think this is good for him to see."

Weir also has a more emotional application for going forward in mind as well.

"It makes me super aware of the importance of friends. And sometimes I'll admit it, I probably wasn't as good a friend to other people as they were to me," he said. "So that's something else I want to work on. I hope to be a better friend for the people who need me to be a better friend in the future."

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