David Walker already had enough to worry about.

For more than a week, the 40-year-old had been at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston being treated for a degenerative brain disease. Earlier this week, he was enjoying a chicken dinner at the hospital when he swallowed a small bone. Moments later, the world was going dark and Walker felt himself losing consciousness.

“I just started choking,” Walker recalled. “I was on my way out. I was almost dead.”

A nurse named Rachel walked past the room and noticed Walker’s distress. She called for help and then jumped into action. Reaching her arms around the patient, the nurse clasped her hands at Walker’s solar plexus and gave a mighty heave.

“The chicken bone came flying right out,” Walker said. “She was so heroic. She knew exactly what to do.”

Walker still has a long road of treatment ahead of him for his brain disease. He expects to be moved to a nursing home in the near future.

Until then though, he likes being at CMMC. He likes being near Rachel, whom he regards as a guardian angel.

“Anything she needs – anything at all, I’m there for her. I owe her,” he said.

In the meantime, Walker is being more selective about what he has for dinner. After all, Rachel won’t be around 24 hours a day.

“I’m steering away from the chicken,” he said.

– Mark LaFlamme
Three down

Mayoral candidate Charles Soule is hoping Lewiston residents will want to weigh in on the future of Bates Mill.

Soule has taken the first step in getting a question about a proposed exit strategy on a ballot sometime soon. The strategy would give private developers all but two buildings at the Bates Mill. That should cut the city’s costs in half, from $59 million over the next seven years to about $28 million.

The deal needs City Council approval, but Soule thinks the people should decide.

To do that, registered Lewiston voters need to sign two separate petitions – the first to begin a formal petition and a formal petition to get the strategy on the ballot.

The first petition needs 10 signatures, three of which had been collected by Friday morning. The petition is available at the City Clerk’s office in Lewiston City Hall from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.

If Soule gets the 10 signatures, the clerk will begin collecting signatures for a second petition. Soule would have 60 days to collect 1,000 signatures. That petition would only be available at the City Clerk’s office during business hours.

If he succeeds, the strategy would likely be put to a vote.

– Scott Taylor

JFK memories

As Guy Nadeau was remembering President John F. Kennedy’s visit to Lewiston in 1960, he recalled that his wife, Jacqueline Nadeau, had one regret.

Because Guy was a Democratic activist back then, the couple could have been on the gazebo while JFK delivered his Lewiston speech. They could have met the president.

“I tried to coax her up,” Guy said. But Jacqueline was shy.

Soon afterward she regretted her decision not to shake hands with the first Irish-Catholic president. With a chuckle, her husband blamed her decision on her “stubborn Irish streak.”

The Nadeaus’ son is Phil Nadeau, Lewiston’s assistant city administrator. He noted that many power brokers of the Kennedy era – Ed Muskie, Louis Jalbert and Roland Landry – are gone.

“Unfortunately we’re getting to the point where soon the oral history of the Kennedy Lewiston visit will be gone,” Phil Nadeau said.

– Bonnie Washuk