Lisa Byers with her son Braxton
There was an automated external defibrillator (AED) on the premises but meeting participants did not feel comfortable using it. They called 9-1-1 and paramedics arrived seven minutes later. After four shocks, she was resuscitated. They brought her to nearby Scott White Memorial Hospital.
“The doctors were skeptical about the possibility of a full recovery,” said Byers, “since I had been without a heartbeat or oxygen for over seven minutes. They prepared my family and friends for the worst.”
But the hospital was one of a few that provides the relatively new therapy of hypothermia to comatose survivors of sudden cardiac arrest. “They froze me,” said Byers. Then she received an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). She spent eight days in the hospital and returned home.
“After that, I slept a lot and took a lot of medications,” said Byers. “I cannot remember two weeks before the event or the time in the hospital. They say it was like having ‘milk of amnesia.’” She was able to return to work one month later and things returned to normal.
Until Thanksgiving 2006. “My heart started beating very fast, for about two to three minutes,” said Byers. “My face was pounding. I had to spend the night at the hospital and I had an echo, but they said everything was okay. They could not find anything wrong.”
Byers knows there is a reason she survived—against all odds. “I have a very loving family. We have two family restaurants. And I have a son, Braxton, who is 18. I think that’s why He kept me here. I am thankful to God for granting me this new lease on life.”
-M. M. Newman