‘I WAS AMAZED THAT I SURVIVED’
Being in right place at right time saved a life
My uncle may be the luckiest man ever to have a massive heart attack.
It was Aug. 2, and Kenny Hall — Uncle Kenny — had just walked into Auntie Jody’s hospital room in the cardiac care unit at Baystate Medical Center, sat down to share breakfast with her, and then announced, “I don’t feel well.”
He then collapsed. His heart had stopped.
Auntie Jody, 60, was in the Springfield hospital awaiting a triple bypass operation. But as a registered nurse, she knew immediately her 54-year-old husband had the more pressing heart concern. He was minutes from death.
She immediately called the code and got out of her hospital bed to prep him for CPR.
“I felt like my whole life had changed in that moment,” Auntie Jody told me yesterday — still in her hospital bed, dealing with a difficult recovery from her own operation.
Doctors and nurses rushed in to begin CPR on Uncle Kenny as their children, Kristy and Tony Hall, arrived. The team performed CPR for 10 minutes, then another 10, and then another 10, at each interval asking Jody, Kristy and Tony if they wanted to “call it.”
“Basically they had to prepare us for the worst,” my cousin Kristy said. “Even if he did make it, he would be brain dead. We came to terms with the fact that he wasn’t going to make it.”
But after 45 minutes of CPR, a doctor uttered the words they no longer expected. “We’ve got a pulse.” Uncle Kenny was alive. And he was going to make it. It took two major surgeries that required Kenny to go on life support. Then he was on the road to recovery in the hospital, his wife just two floors above him. The doctors told Uncle Kenny that if he had been anywhere but a cardiac care unit, he would be dead.
“I did not die and I came back for a reason,” Uncle Kenny told me yesterday. “I have a strong feeling about that, but I can’t explain it.
“I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t believe I was gone that long. I was amazed that I survived this,” he said.
“It was in God’s hands, that’s all I can tell you,” Auntie Jody said.
When Uncle Kenny was finally able to see her again, he kissed her on the head and thanked her for saving his life by preparing him for CPR.
“I’ve always believed in a higher power and I always had my doubts, but I don’t have doubts anymore,” Uncle Kenny said.
Meanwhile, Jody’s triple bypass surgery turned into an eight-hour long quadruple bypass surgery, which went well.
Kristy took a leave of absence from work and slept at the hospital for weeks to be with her parents.
“It felt overwhelming, but I was really lucky to have a supportive family to help me,” Kristy said. “I will be forever grateful for the care they received.”
The couple ha0d been lifelong smokers, but no more.
“Smoking can kill,” said Kenny, who is home now. “Now I have no forward plans to have a cigarette. Never again. It will kill you.”
Jody’s road to recovery is long and ongoing as she remains in the hospital.
Our family is still reeling from shock at the ordeal Kenny and Jody went through, but overcome with awe at the miraculous outcome. We have been taught a lesson in gratitude and the need to treasure those around us.
As Uncle Kenny said, “You don’t really know how much you love your family until something like this happens.”