Cheating the grim reaper a heart attack survived
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
THE smile on her face was the first recollection I had of being alive, knowing something had happened and that whatever it was I had been at its centre.
She was one of the young runners I had been training with early that sunny Saturday morning. She always seemed able to laugh at anything, even death. Humour may be an acquired trait of distance runners.
She told me I had suffered a heart attack. My heart had stopped, was shocked back into rhythm, and then stopped again in the hospital, and was shocked back into rhythm again.
Why me? A 63-year-old with six marathons under his belt? My running was great, but my heavy smoking habit wasn't. My heart attack took place on August 4, 2007 on a lakeside trail in Chicago. I was incredibly lucky to survive it.
I was finishing an easy six-mile (9.5km) run ahead of the Chicago Distance Classic, a half marathon the following weekend. I was having a good time, it was great to be alive and moving.
I remember a sudden rush of puzzling thoughts:
"I'm getting sick? This isn't right. What did I eat last night? What did I eat this morning? I'm getting sick on such a short easy run? During speed training, maybe. Sometimes in the last mile of a race if I push it. But now?"
I told my running buddies I needed to veer off the path and be sick. "We'll wait for you," I heard Tanya say.
Those were the last words I remember. I'm told I fell flat on my face, didn't move a muscle or make a sound.
I had always imagined a heart attack as a painful struggle: tight chest muscles, shortness of breath, numbness in an arm, textbook warning signs. This one was quick and painless.
Great luck or some would say miracles kicked in.
Tanya had been reading about CPR the previous evening. She began blowing oxygen into my lungs and compressing my chest 10, 20, 30 times between breaths to try to keep my broken heart muscle and stifled brain cells on life support.
My other running buddy Jill helped. A lifeguard who ran by also stopped and helped with CPR. Someone called an ambulance. Another runner, a nurse, couldn't find a pulse. But my life savers wouldn't give up. They kept up the exhausting CPR for 12 minutes before paramedics jolted my heart back into a rhythm.
So I was dead for 12 minutes. My heart stopped again on Saturday night, requiring a second round of electric shock to jump-start my life again.
People later asked me: you were dead what was it like? Did you see a white light? An angelic face? I remember only waking up, coming back to life, seeing familiar faces.
It feels eerie to think of how many solo runs I had been on since late winter, without potential life-saving buddies.
One of the arteries feeding blood and oxygen to my heart had been 100 per cent blocked and another was 95 per cent blocked. I had chain smoked for 40 years. Now I have stopped. Cardiologists and other doctors could find nothing other than smoking, along with years of stress including long days and short nights, as the causes for the artery blockages.
Two days later a surgeon opened my chest and carried out a double by-pass, installing new arteries taken from my left leg.
My first hobbling steps from bed the next day were a dramatic shift from the 30 miles I had run the previous week and from my busy days of running around and reporting on the frantic grain markets of the Chicago Board of Trade.
The surgeon told me just one per cent of people who have a massive heart attack survive.
I went home six days after the heart attack. Seven weeks of rest and slow, steady physical therapy followed. I returned to work as a reporter at Reuters Chicago news bureau on October 1.
Now I've resumed running, initially three days a week at an easy pace for 30 minutes on a treadmill, and have tested the trails outdoors on two "easy" three mile runs.
I'm really out of shape. But I have a lot of good people in my life to be grateful for and that keep me moving. Reuters
She was one of the young runners I had been training with early that sunny Saturday morning. She always seemed able to laugh at anything, even death. Humour may be an acquired trait of distance runners.
She told me I had suffered a heart attack. My heart had stopped, was shocked back into rhythm, and then stopped again in the hospital, and was shocked back into rhythm again.
Why me? A 63-year-old with six marathons under his belt? My running was great, but my heavy smoking habit wasn't. My heart attack took place on August 4, 2007 on a lakeside trail in Chicago. I was incredibly lucky to survive it.
I was finishing an easy six-mile (9.5km) run ahead of the Chicago Distance Classic, a half marathon the following weekend. I was having a good time, it was great to be alive and moving.
I remember a sudden rush of puzzling thoughts:
"I'm getting sick? This isn't right. What did I eat last night? What did I eat this morning? I'm getting sick on such a short easy run? During speed training, maybe. Sometimes in the last mile of a race if I push it. But now?"
I told my running buddies I needed to veer off the path and be sick. "We'll wait for you," I heard Tanya say.
Those were the last words I remember. I'm told I fell flat on my face, didn't move a muscle or make a sound.
I had always imagined a heart attack as a painful struggle: tight chest muscles, shortness of breath, numbness in an arm, textbook warning signs. This one was quick and painless.
Great luck or some would say miracles kicked in.
Tanya had been reading about CPR the previous evening. She began blowing oxygen into my lungs and compressing my chest 10, 20, 30 times between breaths to try to keep my broken heart muscle and stifled brain cells on life support.
My other running buddy Jill helped. A lifeguard who ran by also stopped and helped with CPR. Someone called an ambulance. Another runner, a nurse, couldn't find a pulse. But my life savers wouldn't give up. They kept up the exhausting CPR for 12 minutes before paramedics jolted my heart back into a rhythm.
So I was dead for 12 minutes. My heart stopped again on Saturday night, requiring a second round of electric shock to jump-start my life again.
People later asked me: you were dead what was it like? Did you see a white light? An angelic face? I remember only waking up, coming back to life, seeing familiar faces.
It feels eerie to think of how many solo runs I had been on since late winter, without potential life-saving buddies.
One of the arteries feeding blood and oxygen to my heart had been 100 per cent blocked and another was 95 per cent blocked. I had chain smoked for 40 years. Now I have stopped. Cardiologists and other doctors could find nothing other than smoking, along with years of stress including long days and short nights, as the causes for the artery blockages.
Two days later a surgeon opened my chest and carried out a double by-pass, installing new arteries taken from my left leg.
My first hobbling steps from bed the next day were a dramatic shift from the 30 miles I had run the previous week and from my busy days of running around and reporting on the frantic grain markets of the Chicago Board of Trade.
The surgeon told me just one per cent of people who have a massive heart attack survive.
I went home six days after the heart attack. Seven weeks of rest and slow, steady physical therapy followed. I returned to work as a reporter at Reuters Chicago news bureau on October 1.
Now I've resumed running, initially three days a week at an easy pace for 30 minutes on a treadmill, and have tested the trails outdoors on two "easy" three mile runs.
I'm really out of shape. But I have a lot of good people in my life to be grateful for and that keep me moving. Reuters
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