St. Anthony: Abbott Northwestern receives $3 million gift from grateful patient

[Star Tribune, December 26, 2014] A grateful Minnesota entrepreneur, Rod Burwell, credits the emergency care personnel at Abbott Northwestern Hospital with saving his life this year.

“I had a blood infection and went to the emergency room in January 2014 and I didn’t get out of Abbott until April,” Burwell recalled last week. “I was near death several times. I guess I actually died … ‘coded’ … at one point. It didn’t bother me because I didn’t know what was going on, but it wasn’t great for my family.

“I survived several operations with a survival rate of only 5 or 10 percent. I was very weak. But I’m back now. I’m getting stronger.”

Rod and Barbara Burwell, also longtime community philanthropists, recently pledged $3 million to the $15 million Critical Care Campaign of the Abbott Northwestern Hospital Foundation to renovate and expand Abbott Northwestern’s emergency department and neurological intensive care unit

The gift is the largest of the campaign and one of the largest from an individual in Abbott’s history.

Read the rest of the story at startribune.com.