Ed Kinney: Fast action, surgeons, prayer 'saved my life' Ed Kinney: Fast action, surgeons, prayer 'saved my life' (February 04, 2005)

by Jeb Bing

F or the thousands who rallied behind former mayor and Realtor Ed Kinney and the hundreds who tracked his progress online since he suffered a near-fatal aneurysm of the left - or descending - aorta three months ago, we all breathed a collective sigh of relief last week when he finally came home. Kinney, 67, knows something about aneurysms besides the one he battled for many long weeks. His father William was also 67 when he died of the same type of aneurysm, and two of Kinney's brothers, Bill of Santa Rosa and Mahlon of St. Louis, died of the same type of aneurysm in 1986 and 1988, respectively. Both were 58.

With that family experience, Ed Kinney had chest exams regularly and over the past six months was on special medication to control his slowly rising blood pressure. Even so, Kinney, an agent with Hometown GMAC Real Estate for the past 21 years and a board member and passionate supporter of the Museum On Main Street, felt fine Monday, Nov. 22, when he stopped at the Clifford Circle home of Mary Walker, who wanted to volunteer at the museum. As they were talking, Kinney's legs started to give out, he was sweating and grew a bit dizzy just as Mary's husband, Tom Walker, manager of the Rose Hotel, came home for lunch. He immediately called 911 and within minutes, emergency room doctors at ValleyCare Medical Center ordered Kinney rushed to John Muir Hospital where a team of neurosurgeons and cardiologists were on duty and waiting when he arrived. During the next five hours, and with seconds to spare, they successfully replaced the inner and middle layers of the Kinney's left aorta that had already burst, sewing in an artificial shunt that took the pressure off the outside wall before it split.

Kinney credits the new procedure, quick surgery and prayers from his many friends and local church congregations with saving his life. Had he been scouting property for clients in Ruby Hill or Livermore, as he often does, he probably would have "bought the farm," an expression he had to explain to a nurse in the intensive care unit after surgery. She quipped that it was good that he's in real estate and knew when to cancel an offer that wasn't good.

The heroine in all this is Kinney's wife Roberta. She added daily and nighttime hospital visits to her husband to her two-year-long schedule of taking her mother every day from a senior housing facility to visit her father, who is in a Walnut Creek convalescent home. Neighbors at the Greenfield Way home, where the Kinneys have lived for the last 35 years, maintained the house and also had meals ready when she returned home each night. Roberta Kinney also had help from the couple's two sons, Brad, who owns Brad Kinney Productions, and Scott, who lives in Clayton.

Other helpmates were Al and Bev Walburg, close friends for the past 45 years who now live in Auburn. Notified the first day about Ed Kinney's aneurysm, Bev Walburg "cranked up her computer" (as she said) and started e-mailing word of his condition daily to his many Tri-Valley friends. In the end, more than 100 of us were on her address list, including those who served with him or were political supporters when he served on the City Council. Besides his top awards as a real estate salesman, Kinney also has been the main announcer for Pleasanton parades for nearly 30 years.

Kinney, an original part of the Balloon Platoon started by the men's club at Pleasanton Presbyterian Church, says he's never been a deeply religious man. But he's sure the prayers friends said for him, and those from the prayer lists of most Pleasanton churches, helped. He promises to be more regular in attending Sunday services from now on.

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