My Heart Stopped

I woke up 2 weeks later with quite a story to tell.

Except I couldn’t talk because the ventilator in my throat and the l4 or so other tubes and devices attached to me kept me tied down and quiet. My only recollection of the event is what I  just described. But I knew I had died and gone to meet Jesus. That was very real.
I also had 2 weeks worth of really strange dreams.

As the emergency vehicle pulled out of the driveway, Barbara called Tommy and Ellen Youngblood, good friends who had been with us earlier. Most of what happened next is reported through their eyes. They met Barbara at the North Fulton hospital, about 6 miles from our home, arriving just after the ambulance.

My heart had stopped and the E.R. staff used defibrillator paddles to shock my heart. Barbara reported I sat straight up. I told her I died but not to be concerned because I was ready to go. Apparently this happened twice. I don’t remember this but Barbara, Tommy and Ellen remember it well. Tommy brought his Bible to the hospital. I had given it to him years before when I was his Pastor. He went outside, squeezing his Bible now worn with use, and asked God to let me live.

A helicopter had been summoned and I was airlifted to Piedmont Hospital, downtown Atlanta. I don’t know how that decision was made, but it was a great one. Tommy said as I was being wheeled out to the helicopter, I looked up and gave him a thumbs up. I don’t remember but I must have been trying to look positive. Someone described my look as the kind you get in western movies when the cowboy tries to remove an arrow from his own chest. The bill for the helicopter ride was $15,000 and I don’t remember any of it but I know it was worth every penny. I later had a vague notion of feeling my toes hanging out the door, but I’m not sure. If I hadn’t been told I went for a helicopter ride, I know I would never remembered it.

The heart doctors I thought so much of, who worked with St. Joseph hospital, had recently moved to Piedmont. I asked Barbara how she knew to send me to Piedmont and she replied she didn’t. The emergency room physician at North Fulton made that decision. As it turns out, my brother in law, Terry McGuirk, serves on the board of directors for Piedmont hospital and some of the best and brightest heart doctors just happened to be on call. Although it would be two weeks before I could see him or shake his hand, that night I met my newest best friend, Dr. Victor Corrigan, who literally saved my life.  Turns out his daughter and my son both attend the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.   But, what a great doctor.   I have been known to study the ways and credentials of my doctors and he is the best of the best.

Sometime about 1 AM or so, Dr. Corrigan opened my left anterior descending artery via angioplasty, using a balloon to restore blood flow. He then inserted a small stent to hold it open. Dr. Corrigan’s credentials are amazing and to have him be on call that night, already at the hospital, saved a tremendous amount of time and in this case, time is heart muscle. But I did lose heart muscle that night. I will now live with congestive heart failure as my diagnosis. But because of Barbara’s quick thinking, the agility of the EMT team, the great job by the emergency room team, the helicopter pilot and crew and ultimately Dr. Corrigan and the Piedmont Physicians group, I am here to tell the story.