I'm a 35 year-old SCA survivor.  On the evening of July 12, 2006 I went to play basketball at our local church.  After about two and a half hours of play, we started the final game of the night.  I recall feeling a bit sluggish, but thought nothing of it.  After all, I'd been playing hard all night.  That's the last thing I remember...

Twelve days later I woke up in a hospital bed with no idea where I was or how I had gotten there.  I later learned that on that fateful night, I had just grabbed a rebound and tossed the ball to a team mate down court.  I started running to join the offense.  As I reached about mid-court, I said "Oh no!", grabbed my chest, and fell first to my knees and then onto my face.  I started having convulsions and the other players thought I was having a seizure.  They called 911 and started to treat me.  My convulsions continued, but my breathing was sporadic and irregular and they were unable to find a pulse, so they started CPR.  My jaw had locked shut, so they couldn't do mouth to mouth, but they did chest compressions.  EMS arrived after about 15 minutes and took over.  I was in severe Vfib.  They worked on me for another 30 to 40 minutes including two or three shocks with the defibrillator before I was stable enough to transport to the hospital. 

At the hospital I was still not breathing on my own, so they intubated me and put me on a respirator.  My convulsions continued and the doctors debated what to do.  I have heard from several sources that the general consensus was that I would not survive.  The cardiologist told my wife that he usually didn't treat patients like me because most died before reaching the hospital.  The good news was that I wasn't already dead.  He offered to treat me in the Cath Lab, so at least they would know what had happened.  An angioplasty revealed that my LAD had collapsed near the entrance and was only intermittently supplying blood to my left ventricle.  They inserted a stent to keep it open.  A balloon pump was also inserted to help my heart pump.   

After the procedure, I continued to convulse and have episodes of Vtac.  In the hopes of reducing tissue and brain damage, the doctors initiated hypothermia treatment.  I was the first patient to receive this treatment at this particular hospital and they did not yet have a cooling blanket, so for the first day I was packed in ice until a cooling blanket arrived.  Unfortunately, although my heart began to improve, I started to have complications.  I began retaining water, gaining about 20 pounds.  One of my lungs filled with fluid to the point where it could no longer be seen with a Chest X-ray and I was still unable to breath on my own.  My enzyme levels rose and doctors feared that I had pancreatitis.  This continued for some time until, finally, seven days after my initial collapse, I coughed up a large blood clot and my lung began to clear.  From that point on, my condition improved dramatically.  Over the next couple days, I began to breath on my own, but they kept me sedated and on the respirator for several more days.  Finally, twelve days after my collapse, I was extubated and taken off of the respirator.  Only then did I regain consciousness and become aware of what had happened.  I was fortunate to find myself surrounded by family and my wife by my side.

From there I continued to recover rapidly.  Within a couple of days I was able to walk around the Intensive Care Unit and was transfered to a regular floor of the hospital.  I feared that I had sustained permanent damage when I struggled tremendously to complete the basic exercises the physical therapists gave me.  However, each day my strength and coordination improved dramatically to the point that within a week I was able to juggle and I knew that I would eventually be able to do everything I had done before my collapse. 

Once home from the hospital, I continued to convalesce.  The biggest challenge was recovering my ability to swallow, since parts of my throat were damaged by the prolonged intubation.  It took another month and multiple sessions doing exercises with a speech therapist before I was finally allowed to drink regular liquids. 

Looking back, I'm grateful to have rebounded and fully recovered.  In all it took about six months to return to normal, but I'm lucky to have even survived.  I owe my life to the former Boy Scouts I was playing with, who knew how to administer CPR, to the EMT's who responded to the 911 call, to the doctors and nurses in the hospital, to the clergy from my church who prayed for my recovery, and to my wife, who never left my side as I fought for my life.