Marblehead Fire Chief Jason Gilliland is home recovering from emergency heart surgery earlier this week. “I’m doing extremely well,” he told the Current on Friday.
“I went in for a routine MRI and, luckily, the radiologist went a little higher and noticed a golf ball-size tumor in my heart. They said it’s lucky that a piece didn’t flick off or I would’ve been dead.”
The tumor was non-cancerous. “I had a really great surgeon at Mass General who took the damn thing out,” Gilliland said. “I was released yesterday.”
Gilliland, who had no cardiac symptoms, will recover at home for the next couple of weeks. He says his senior officers are in charge at the two fire houses.
“I’m still at the helm as far as admin goes and I log in remotely. The only day I missed logging in was the day of surgery.”
Gilliland said he’s working on his report for May’s Town Meeting, and he plans to attend the State of the Town at Abbot Hall on Jan. 28.
Editor Leigh Blander is an experienced TV, radio and print journalist.
