Retired Jamestown doctor survives mini-stroke, helps fund JRMC security upgrade

Dr. Larry Johnson spent decades caring for Jamestown families. Then, while exercising at Two Rivers Activity Center, the retired physician became the patient, suffering his third transient ischemic attack, or mini-stroke, and needing the same local emergency system he had long trusted.

Johnson was rushed to JRMC’s emergency department, where Dr. Steve Inglish and Dr. Bradly Skari stabilized him. When no cardiac beds were available anywhere in North Dakota, the JRMC team arranged an emergency flight to Sioux Falls so Johnson could move quickly to the next level of care. In a rural region where the nearest major resource can still be hours away, that speed mattered.

Johnson later returned to Jamestown and completed stroke rehabilitation with physical therapist Sherry Benson. Over time, he regained his strength and confidence, turning a frightening medical crisis into a recovery story shaped by fast treatment, coordinated transport and steady rehab close to home.

That experience also came full circle in a way that reaches beyond one patient. Johnson and his wife, Tish, helped finalize an access-controlled door for the admissions area, the final contribution needed to complete a security project at JRMC. The upgrade was designed to improve safety for staff and patients entering one of the hospital’s busiest public spaces.

For Johnson, the gift was a direct way to give back to the hospital that saved his life. For JRMC, it underscored a broader reality that matters to every family in Stutsman County: healthcare is not only about physicians and equipment. It also depends on building design, emergency readiness, patient transport, rehabilitation and the trust that grows when local care works under pressure.

Johnson’s story links all of those pieces together. A doctor who once delivered care in Jamestown later depended on the same system himself, then helped strengthen it for the next patient who walks through the doors.