BKD senior portfolio manager recovering from heart attack

Gretchen Cliburn, a senior portfolio manager with BKD Wealth Advisors LLC, is recovering from a heart attack suffered during a half-marathon Saturday in downtown Springfield.

Cliburn, 42, collapsed between the ninth and tenth mile of the April 19 Go Girl Run event, said husband Ken Cliburn.

"She collapsed and began convulsing, at which point several of the ladies that were surrounding her ... jumped in once she started turning blue," said Ken, 45, a retired military veteran.

Turned out, some of those runners were nurses from local hospitals, who performed CPR for over 20 minutes, keeping Gretchen alive before a Mercy ambulance arrived, Ken said.

"The miracle is there's five or six ladies who were there that began CPR and didn't stop. Her chest is bruised from the CPR these ladies gave her," Ken said. "They kept her alive."

After Mercy emergency responders resuscitated her with defibrillators, Gretchen was taken to the emergency room and then transferred to intensive care, where health care workers tended to her for some 27 hours.

"After talking to several people at the scene, I knew there was a reason she was still here, because she had ample opportunity to die," Ken said. "Even the ICU floor nurses were like, 'This is a miracle. We've never seen anybody do this. We've never seen anybody come back like this.'"

Among visitors to see Gretchen was BKD Wealth Advisors President Jack Thurman, who Ken said stayed for hours.

Ken said Gretchen is still in ICU but might move to a standard room within the next 24 hours. He said she's getting better - sitting up, communicating and breathing without the respirator - but it's unknown when she might go home.

Gretchen was named among Springfield Business Journal's 2011 class of Most Influential Women. At the time, she managed more than $91 million and 100 client relationships for BKD. A member of the board of directors for Ronald McDonald House, Gretchen also has served as chairwoman of the Junior Cattle Baron's Ball.

"She's an amazing woman," Ken said.