A few weeks back I saw a post on Facebook showing Alberto Knie lying in a hospital bed hooked up to ventilator. I tell my students all the time, being on a vent, or dialysis, or even having a colostomy, sometimes things looks worse than they are. Those interventions are done to rest the body and reduce the amount of work its needs to do allowing it to heal. For some, they are reversible. In Al's case these were lifesaving measures.
 |
| From Facebook, Alberto Knie |
If you're a die hard angler. Spin, fly, bait, or handline, or if you've ever read a magazine or attended a show then the name Alberto Knie should ring a bell. You may know him as "Crazy Alberto", a nickname he gave himself after so many of his family and friends called him crazy because of his fishing passion. In an interview with Surfcaster's Journal in 2014 Alberto said, "I really believe I was born to fish".
Born in Hong Kong he spent the early years in Brazil before coming to New York City where he found waters like the East and Hudson Rivers and the Jamaica and Sheepshead Bays. He started fishing, by any method possible, before finding surfcasting, and the striped bass. Knie says his life changed when he developed that passion, which soon took him to the South Shore of Long Island and Montauk.
After Montauk he expanded his quest for exotic and big fish traveling the world. He is a true advocate for the sport of fishing. Everywhere he goes he is always educating and promoting the positive aspects of the sport. He is one of the poster children for old school legendary anglers.
And we almost lost him.
This has been a rough run these past years as it seems all of the icons in fishing, and not just fly, have started to move on. We know death occurs, and we will all die one day, but are we and the sport ready to continue on in these new times and with, well really, new people? We aren't the same, that's for sure, and fishing isn't the same, that's for sure. I really have to believe, for as good as technology is, I guess, the internet and social media have really killed a large part of what "the game" was all about. But, I'll admit, it's not all for the bad. But the bad parts of it really kill me.
When I grew up in fishing, as a teenager, the Flatbrook (A river in North Jersey) was a trip, not a ride. Places like Montauk and the Upper Delaware rivers were in foreign lands, and Montana might of well have been in another country. The big guns in fly fishing were royalty, and even seeing them in person was intimidating, no matter how welcoming, like a Popovics and Kreh, really were.
These days everything is available from our mother's basement. We're "friends" with the legends. We "know" all about everything regarding a fishing destination or species, even though we haven't been there or caught a fish there in over a year. We tie flies, that other people invented, ad nauseam with a very slight chance they will ever see the water, yet alone a fishes mouth, and definetley not at night when you're chasing a moon or a tide.
While this post is about Alberto, and all he represents, I'll have to just point out something I've noticed since Bob passed away last November. There is a hole, and a deep one for sure. What's missed, for me, are the touches. They didn't come everyday, but when they did I looked forward to them, and cherished them. And they were reciprocal. Some day I woke to his texts, other days they originated from me. But what I've also noticed is the drop-off of posts on the various fly-tying social media platforms.
The above post was one of Bob's last on September 8, 2004 on the Saltwater Fly Tying The Northeast page which is on Facebook. That was one year ago today. He was warning us of the mullet run, which, we know, is non-existant these days. Well, not all true. We have mullet, more so around the north jetty of the Barnegat Inlet, there's just the bass around to meet them like in years past. There's also the fly tying forum on Stripersonline.com. Before Bob passed there was a plethora of Fleye style flies that inundated, in a good way, every forum. And I think the motivation for some, and not in a bad way, was to be noticed by or critiqued by the Master himself. Which he did, almost daily.
Bob took the time to drop a comment to encourage the beginner or even for one of the experts, like the above post on a Andre Van Wyk fly, who's probably one of the top five Bobby-style fly tyers in the world, alright I'll say 10 so everyone doesn't get their panties in a bunch. But he had a presence and was "touchable" in ways he couldn't have been before the internet and social media. But since his passing the posting of his style flies, and in fly tying in general, appeared to have dropped off. That's what happens when icons and legends step away or move on, and it's very difficult, if not impossible, to fill their shoes.
I laid off of guessing what put Alberto in the hospital but he announced he had suffered a massive heart attack. Those heart attacks, they'll kill you, sometimes. I'm not going to try and speculate what Alberto went through but I will write a little about heart health and heart attacks.
Some people don't know but heart attacks affect the "outside" of the heart, which then can affect the "inside" of the heart. The heart has four chambers. It's a muscle. That muscle needs oxygen to pump blood to the rest of the body, and help de-oxygenated blood get back to the heart. Now there can be other things going on with a heart, like electrical problems, say atrial fibrillation, which can cause the heart to beat irregular, to the point it stops. But here I'm talking blood flow and blockages.
In order for those heart muscles to get the oxygen they need there are a series of large and small blood vessels, arteries and veins, called the coronary circulatory system. The ones we really focus on are the coronary arteries. They can get filled with all that fried chicken, butter, half and half, and oil that we injest everyday. And if they get blocked then the oxygen rich blood
can't get past and that part of the heart dies, which is called a heart attack. Heart attacks are permanent. Some folks have angina, or ischemic chest pain, which usually resolves with rest or nitroglycerin.
Heart attacks can be small, or massive. It all depends on the vessel(s) involved. One vessel, called the Left Anterior Descending (LAD) is known as the "Widowmaker" because if you block that one, for any length of time, it's not good, or really, fatal.
While yes, you can have a "Silent MI", meaning heart attack without or with mild symptoms, the number complaint is chest pain. When cells don't get the oxygen they need they let you know about it, in fact, they scream! You can have that pain with angina or a heart attack. One resolves, the other will need some help. Other symptoms are pain in the right arm, pain radiating to the back or jaw, diaphoresis (sweating), shortness of breath, or anxiety and feelings of impending doom.
Let's just say you're not in the know of things heart attack. You should be, especially if you're in our age group, or let's say above 40, or have a family history. One quick story, true of course. I was working UMDNJ EMS in Newark back in the early 90's and was doing CPR on a guy on his bathroom floor at 6 o'clock in the morning. As I did compressions I asked his wife if there was any family history. She answered, "His Dad died at 57 of a heart attack, and his brother died at 57 of a heart attack". "Okay how old is your husband?", "57". Game, set, match.
I use thing blog, at times, for a PSA, or Public Service Announcements. Here is your heart attack one. First, you should be living your most healthy life. Okay, enough of that, but we should be. Two, and I'm pretty good at this, you should have an annual physical, including an EKG and bloodwork, especially that Lipid Panel. Your Doctor recommends those statins (cholesterol lowering medications) for a reason, and it's because your lipid numbers (Good and bad cholesterol) are shit. Cholesterol loves to adhere to the walls of our arteries, and cause blockages. Yours lies about changing your diet and exercise are just that.
The next, and most important thing, is to not brush off chest pain. Don't tell your buddies up in heaven, "I thought I slept wrong", or "I thought I pulled a muscle". If it doesn't feel right, let somebody else tell you it's nothing. Get yourself to an urgent care or the emergency department. You're not bothering anyone, it could be your life. Time is muscle tissue.
So what to do if you are having chest pain. Well, get safe. Get off the ladder. Pull over. But don't stop fishing, just kidding. Then call out somebody around you or 911. The next is up to you. Aspirin is a miracle drug for heart attacks. It's an antiplatelet which will help make your blood less sticky and reduce the formation of clots. (Just simply). Some of us are prescribed a "baby aspirin" each day by our cardiologist, an 81 mg dose. "Normal" aspirin are 325 mg. If you are
having chest pain you COULD take aspirin. Chewable are the best, the coated ones are not as they take a lot of time to be absorbed. You should keep some chewable in your house, and even your car, if you choose. You could take a couple, chew them up, and wash them down. Now some may caution you because you might be having a directed aortic aneurysm (That's really not good), but again, it's up to you. Talk to your health care provider.
When you get to the ER they'll do an EKG and look for changes. I have had a patient who had a routine EKG and I asked them, "When was your heart attack?". "Heart attack?". Yes, because heart attacks can be mild but they show up permanently on an EKG, almost like a cardiac history. They'll also draw bloodwork to look at your cardiac enzymes, specifically troponin, to see if it's elevated. If it's wonky then you'll be off to the cardiac cath lab for an angiogram. And while they're there they might balloon, stent, or by-pass you. While you're lying there all nervous and what not you may hear the words STEMI (ST elevation MI) or NSTEMI (Non- ST elevation MI). It's the cool kid way to say heart attacks these days.
I wish us all a long and healthy life. Health is wealth they say. But boy dam near kill us between the work it takes to survive to all of the stress and anxiety we have to endure. And let's not even talk about the shit we put into our bodies before we just shit it out anyway. It's amazing our bodies put up with us.
I hope Alberto a good recovery. He has done incredible things for all of us in fishing, as have the other icons. Let his resume of fishing be a usable tool for all of us. But let's also learn from his recent health scare. We can learn from that as well.