The Kindness of Strangers: Scientist Survives Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest

By Justin Stroh

Despite his recent traumatic injury, NFL player Damar Hamlin is a very lucky man: He suffered an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) on the playing field and lived to talk about it. He is very fortunate that his OHCA was witnessed in real time and there was competent medical staff available within yards of his fall. But was his OHCA a freak incident not likely to be repeated elsewhere? Absolutely not. In fact, OHCA attacks approximately 1,000 Americans every day. It is a leading cause of death in this country and attacks both young and old, no matter what their physical condition.

I’m a scientist who spent his career in the research and development of new pharmaceuticals. During this time, I knew of four men who experienced OHCA at middle age. The first was working at the lab bench one day and simply fell down dead. The second was in a business meeting and sitting in a chair when he slumped over and died. The third collapsed in his home one morning as he prepared to get to work. And the fourth was at his workplace but alone when his OHCA occurred. He was the only victim I knew who survived because his colleagues eventually found him and he was resuscitated. Today he still faces challenges due to a brain injury.

The statistics are not good for OHCA — around 90% of victims do not make it to hospital discharge, and of the remainder who do, many enter long-term care facilities with difficulties related to physical movement and cognition. And then, every once in a while, there is someone like me.

I was outside shoveling snow after a winter storm in 2021 and I simply fell down dead — or so I have been told (virtually everyone who survives an OHCA suffers from amnesia around their event, and I was no exception). But, like Damar Hamlin, I was extremely lucky. Very soon after my collapse a stranger drove by and saw my lifeless body on the sidewalk. She stopped her car, called 911 and immediately started chest compressions. She continued CPR until the EMTs arrived. In their efforts to revive me, they shocked me five times and gave me four shots of adrenaline. Halfway to the hospital, they got a pulse on me. The EMTs intubated me and attached me to a ventilator to direct pure oxygen into my lungs.

Once at the hospital, I was put through their standard operating procedures for OHCA: 

1. They looked for potential causes of my OHCA (heart attack, genetic predispositions, illicit drug use, etc.)
2. They put me into induced hypothermia (lowering my body temperature to protect vital organs from issues related to the loss of oxygen before resuscitation), and
3. They put me into a medically induced coma to protect from the trauma and stabilize me.

The medical staff determined that I had suffered from a heart attack due to a blocked coronary artery. That was corrected the first night I was there. However, I was in the hospital for 90 days with many complications related to the OHCA and subsequent infections. On the fourth day, the medical staff brought my body back to normal temperature and reduced my sedation to bring me out of an induced coma. Less than a day after appearing stable, my vital signs became volatile and the staff were administering more sedation, keeping me in a coma. This cycle repeated itself for an entire month. Every time they tried to bring me out of the induced coma, my vital signs would become unstable. During that time, I developed pneumonia in both lungs (I was intubated the entire time) and required dialysis for my failing kidneys. All this resulted in numerous courses of antibiotics and blood transfusions. 

When the medical team determined that my symptoms were no longer heart related, I was moved out of the cardiac care unit and was under the care of pulmonologists and a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist immediately changed my sedation medications and brought me out of the induced coma, which started the process of getting me off the ventilator. But I was not out of the woods just yet. During this time, I apparently told one of the doctors who visited me alone in my bedroom that there were seven other men in the room at the time all dressed in business suits and all from American Express (this is actually in my medical record). I suffered from what is known as ICU psychosis — not too surprising considering the amount of serious psychoactive drugs they had given me. 

During my third — and last — month in the hospital, I was moved to the acute rehab unit where I came down with in-hospital COVID, which set my recovery back by a week and a half. My discharge papers noted my condition as “serious.” 

In the following 20 months, I have had very extensive physical, occupational, speech and psychotherapy to maximize my recovery. I’ve come so far and amazed doctors and therapists. However, I will never be what I was before my OHCA. 

I am exceedingly grateful for all who have helped me along the way, but I owe my life to the person who responded in the first minutes of my OHCA. I cannot begin to describe just how important it is to start CPR on an OHCA patient immediately. It literally makes the difference between life and death. I have a complete stranger to thank for getting involved and giving me life instead of waiting for the EMTs to arrive and witnessing my death.

For more information on this health topic, visit heart.org.

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