By Scott Swanson
Lebanon Local
It was 1 a.m. on the morning of Sept. 8 when state Sen. Fred Girod awoke in his bedroom overlooking the North Santiam River.
He still doesn’t know why.
“It was just one of those flukes,” Girod said. “I just happened to wake up, in the nick of time.”
That, it turned out, was a life-changing and life-saving moment.
When the Girods retired earlier that night, they’d been told the…