Rick Mylin, Warsaw, IN – 45 at time of event (2008)
A big box hardware store was nearly the end of Rick. It was a Saturday afternoon, and while RIck doesn’t remember anything about it, his wife said she’d called him to ask if he was OK. He’d indicated earlier that he wasn’t feeling well. Jo Lynn noticed Rick sounded odd.
“She asked all the questions, ‘pain here, pain there’ but the only thing I said was it felt like I’d pulled a muscle in my shoulder.” She suggested he come home and take a rest. Good thing he did.
Once inside the house Jo Lynn asked him again, “Do you hurt here? Does that hurt?” Rick replied, “No, I just feel tired and I feel like I pulled a muscle.” They decided a quick trip to the hospital was in order. Excellent idea.
However, he didn’t make it. He had just backed the pickup out of the garage, when a bout of indigestion hit, something he didn’t suffer from. They began to “discuss” who would drive when Rick passed out. Jo Lynn saw the energy drain out of his eyes. He collapsed right there at the steering wheel, with the engine revving furiously!
While waiting for the EMTs, Jo Lynn and their daughter, Tayler, knew they had to do something, but Rick was slumped in driver’s seat. Tayler had learnt CPR in school not long before. Jo Lynn thumped Rick's chest a few times, and they noticed him gasp each time. That was probably enough to keep him alive.
The fireman who pulled Rick out of the truck had been a friend for twenty years, and used such force Rick’s arms were bruised. But time was of the essence and they started treating him on the driveway. For twelve minutes or so they performed CCR*, and used an Auto Pulse resuscitation machine. This is a backboard with a mechanically driven strap over the chest that compresses the ribcage, freeing the paramedics for inserting IVs and deploying the defibrillator. They had to shock him four times before taking him to the the local community hospital, where he needed to be defibrillated again, and a sixth time in the helicopter ride to the trauma centre. He was also treated with hypothermia therapy to protect his brain from anoxia.
Rick had a 75% blockage of his right coronary artery and received a stent to hold open the blood vessel and restore blood-flow to his heart muscle. A mere five days in total and Rick was discharged. Ten weeks of cardiac rehabilitation and he was back to normal. Mind you he has to hold back a little to let his heart muscle heal. “The doctors told me, ‘Do not pick up a snow shovel, you have to be careful for the first year’ because it will take that long due to the damage done to my heart,” Rick said with emphasis.
The drug regime does take its toll; he needs more sleep and doesn’t quite have the stamina he used to. Diet and exercise are now a part of his lifestyle, as is the extra, close supervision of the family. “We were a close family before, but we’re a lot closer now! When I sit down to watch TV or read the paper, my daughter, she’s right there beside me—she’s leaning against me!” He had given them a harrowing experience, they had seen it all, plus those dire warnings they received in the hospital when he was in the drug induced coma didn’t help.
Rick heard the story from his his wife. “They told her ‘We hope, when he comes out, that he has memories and is able to talk. If he can’t, we’ll have to call in a neurologist to see if there is any brain activity.’ So she had to worry that I might be brain dead.”
-Jeremy Whitehead
* A new form of CPR, called cardio-cerebral resuscitation, that involves fast and non stop compressions only.