This week, Henry Jampel, MD, celebrated the 17th anniversary of his resuscitation at breakfast in Baltimore with two of his rescuers, David Brown, MD, and Allan Krumholtz, MD, and other friends. On May 16th, 2000, at the age of 44, and seven months after completion of the Ironman Triathlon World Championship in Hawaii, Henry had a cardiac arrest in the shower after a swim workout. After 27 minutes of CPR by four fellow swimmers, who all happened to be physicians, he was successfully defibrillated, a striking example of the exception that disproves the rule. In addition to David and Allan, William Henrich, MD (now in Texas) and Rodney Williams, MD, JD, (now in Hawaii) played critical roles in saving Henry’s life.
Dr. Jampel, a member of the Board of Directors of the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation, is Odds Fellow Professor of Ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He graduated from Harvard University summa cum laude and attended Yale University School of Medicine, where he met his wife Risa, a dermotologist. They have three grown children, Catherine, Joseph and Sarah.
Endurance athletics are Dr. Jampel’s main extracurricular activity. He has completed two Ironman distance triathlons, in Hawaii in 1999 and in Lake Placid in 2004, and six marathons, including Boston in 2009. In September of 2016 he completed his sixth annual three-mile open water swim as part of a fundraiser for the Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins.