After open-heart surgery, David Legg of Clackamas to attempt St. Helens summit

Vim. Vigor. Vitality.

Those words described 66-year-old Clackamas native David Legg just a year ago, before his open-heart surgery for a congenital heart valve defect. Before the death of his mother in January. Before the depression and the brain fog and the physical challenges of recovery from a surgery where his body was chilled to 72 degrees, his blood was drained into a bypass machine, his chest was pried open, and a surgeon replaced his bicuspid aortic valve. 

A year ago, despite his body not receiving optimal blood circulation, Legg walked fast, worked hard, and pushed himself. One memorable August day, he loaded and unloaded a big trailer full of heavy, 100-year-old wood-framed windows and doors. A heavy, self-made window rack fell on his head, dazing him. And a bungee cord popped and hit him in the face, full force. Legg kept working. But periodically during the day he had to bend forward, close his eyes, and breathe deeply for oxygen to feed his heart and brain. Fatigue came calling more frequently as his aortic valve allowed less blood flow.

Today, just 11 months after surgery, all of Legg’s vim is back. 

Last month, Legg climbed the 5,727-foot Coldwater Peak in Washington’s Cascade Range. The trek is 6.4 miles each way, with 2,000 feet in elevation gain. He says “The climb was difficult for me, and I periodically questioned my sanity, but I did it.” There were wild strawberries and huckleberries along the way, as well as the spectacular view from the top. His hard-earned physical rehabilitation paid off. He credits his friends (one of whom is his trek partner) and a Facebook community called Zipper Club (for open heart surgery patients) for their moral support.

And Legg gives enormous credit for his renewed pep to the crew at Providence Willamette Falls Cardio Rehab facility: “Those therapists were instrumental in my rehab. They are great motivators.”

The Oregon City facility serves 200 patients a year with an exercise program aimed for the kind of success Legg has realized. “They worked a miracle on me” he says.

And in a few weeks on the anniversary of his surgery, Legg will attempt a climb to the high crater rim of Mt. St. Helens. That’s 8,365 feet in altitude, 4,500 feet in elevation gain, and in the official category of “very difficult” hikes. This 9.4-mile round trip will be a major undertaking for a man with a rare inoperable “bird’s-nest” growth still in his heart, a pacemaker implanted after surgery last year to jump-start his heart if it misfires, some intermittent pulmonary compromise, and all those traumatic events of the past year.

The trek up and down St. Helens can take 12 hours and presents many challenges. According to others who have made the summit, the last 1,000 feet to the top is a sweaty slog with winds that can pummel the face with ash and grit, and the subsequent descent is brutal on a hiker’s knees, if easier on the psyche.

Dogged determination to be fit enough for this hike is not Legg’s only achievement. A graduate of Clackamas High School and Portland State University, Legg is especially interested in repurposing old wood. He’s a member of the Guild of Oregon Woodworkers, and he crafts lifestyle items from heritage woods. Rooted in his grandfather’s carpentry work and a family history of woodworkers and self-reliance, he says that he sees old wood as something with no end to its use; never to be discarded, never to be junked — there is new purpose always awaiting the skilled hands of a woodworker. Planning for a nonprofit organization that will teach discarded or devalued people the skills to repurpose objects is underway. That organization is his calling, he says. It’s a two-fer, repurposing wood and repurposing people. 

Legg also encourages and inspires others to do good with hands-on volunteerism. He recently spent a week at the Seattle Children’s Hospital Stanley Stamm Summer Camp using his woodworking skills in ways that help ill children have a happy camp experience. He sawed, sanded, chipped, routed, painted and glued to improve a memorial garden there, with creative help from his trek partner.

Millions of people around the world have miracle-working open heart surgery, yet many suffer from the after-effects and a difficult recovery. They often wonder about their purpose in life following surgery. Legg says that doing good in the world — focusing on assisting others — can aid his own continued personal healing while he challenges other recovering heart surgery patients to do the same for themselves and for others. 

“When you do good in your world, your action has a ripple effect” he says. “You forget about your own cares, and you can change the Earth.”