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Dying to Vote

Dying to vote” became a lit­eral real­ity for one elderly Michi­gan man who tem­porar­ily expired while fill­ing out his absen­tee bal­lot. The unnamed man was ulti­mately revived by home care nurse Ty Hous­ton, who was fill­ing out his own absen­tee bal­lot nearby. “He was dead,” Hous­ton told The Detroit News. “He had no heart­beat and he wasn’t breath­ing. I started CPR, and after a few min­utes, he revived and started breath­ing again. He knew his name and his wife’s name. He also knew he was in the mid­dle of some­thing very impor­tant, and wanted to make sure he fin­ished it. The first ques­tion he asked was ‘Did I vote?’” Hous­ton recalled. The man’s wife tried to impress on her hus­band that his life out­weighed his vote, but the man dis­agreed. He report­edly told his wife only two things mat­tered to him: “That I love you and that I fin­ished what I came here to do … vote.”

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