On Nov. 22, 2025, at 4:30 a.m., I was awakened by a smoke alarm in our house. (My wife was out of town.) The whole house was filled with thick black smoke, and the living room was on fire. Almost the entire house was destroyed by the fire and the toxic fumes. We had lived there for 54 years. Our dog, Rocky, 13, who always followed me down the stairs in the morning, did not do so this time. I was sure he had died of smoke inhalation. A female firefighter later went upstairs and brought him down. He was barely breathing but still alive.

Because of the smoke, the only thing I could see was the fire on the first floor. I tried to put it out by filling bottles of water and dumping them on the fire. By a miracle, the fire did go out just as I collapsed while trying to open the front door to get some fresh air. The fire, by the way, had been caused by a not-fully-extinguished candle.

(According to Mr. Google, “Unattended cooking, specifically grease fires or overheated oil, is the primary cause of house fires in the U.S. Other major causes include electrical malfunctions, smoking materials and candles.”)

Our next-door neighbors, Suzanne Brennan and Karen Anderson, both nurses, called 911, and two fire trucks quickly came down Mt. Airy Avenue, sirens screaming. I had suffered a heart attack while trying to put out the fire, and was rushed to Jefferson Einstein Philadelphia Hospital by firefighters. I had a pre-existing heart condition and had an appointment for April of this year with a cardiologist to see if surgery would be necessary. That appointment has been canceled.

On Nov. 26, however, the day before Thanksgiving, I had a seven-hour, open-heart, triple-bypass surgery. I had the worst nightmares of my life while under anesthesia. Many years ago, I read an article that said a person cannot die in his/her own dream. If you die in a dream, it said, then you are dead in real life.

In my last nightmare, however, I did die, and I was sure I would never wake up again. After the passage of time, however (I have no idea how long), I heard the words distinctly, “Pull out the breathing tube.” I then felt the tube being yanked out of my respiratory system. It was extremely painful and seemed to go on and on and on, but when it was finally gone, it was exhilarating.

By the way, in addition to the magnificent team led by cardiac surgeon Dr. Alexandra Tuluca, I would like to thank Dr. John Heysham Gibbon (1903-1973), a Philadelphian whose name is known to very few Americans. During open-heart surgery, a patient’s heart and lungs are “turned off,” becoming non-functioning. Patients are kept alive by the heart-lung machine, which mechanically circulates and oxygenates blood throughout the patient’s body, bypassing the heart and lungs and allowing the surgeon to work in a bloodless surgical field.

A surgeon, Dr. Gibbon and his wife, Mary, who lived in Media in their later years, began developing the heart-lung machine in 1931 and kept improving it until Dr. Gibbon finally performed the world’s first successful use of it in 1953. One can only imagine how many lives Dr. Gibbon’s invention has helped to save.

After the surgery, I caught pneumonia and was also on dialysis for three weeks because of kidney failure. I had so many tubes coming out of me I looked like a science fiction experiment. For several weeks, I lay almost motionless in bed, had to ask for help to use a toilet or perform almost any other normal bodily function. Eventually, I was moved to Wyndmoor Hills, a rehab facility/nursing home, where I spent five more weeks. I was released on Jan. 17. At first in rehab, I could not stand up for more than a few seconds before getting dizzy and falling back in bed. When they put me on a scale that first day, I could not believe that I weighed 121 pounds, having lost 26 pounds in 23 days. I have been encouraged by doctors and nurses to eat as much as possible, and I am now up to 140 pounds, which most Americans would still regard as thin for an adult male.

My wife and I are living in an apartment in Chestnut Hill, five minutes from our house, which will not be habitable for at least four more months because of all the smoke and fire damage. A general contracting firm is there almost every day. Family photos going back decades, books from college, clothing, TV sets, furniture, carpets, etc., were either burned up or are so filled with toxic chemicals that they cannot be salvaged.

The only physical scars I have are on my chest, which I consider badges of honor. Before the hospitalization, I worked out vigorously every day, even with a heart condition, and was proud of being a fit old man. Today I am still an old man, but I get out of breath after walking one or two blocks.

Three times a week, though, I work out vigorously for 90 minutes in the cardiac rehab unit at Bryn Mawr Hospital, which is difficult but invigorating. I feel very lucky to be alive. I would like to thank the many great people at Jefferson Einstein Hospital, many of them immigrants, and Wyndmoor Hills. Most are kind, caring, overworked and underpaid individuals to whom I will always be grateful.

If I have any words of wisdom, they are: Make sure you have smoke detectors and that the batteries are working. The Philadelphia Fire Department will install them for free. And make sure you have homeowners insurance, which may be the bargain of a lifetime. A $1,000 policy may literally end up saving you hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.