I am a very lucky man.
I felt absolutely fine that Wednesday morning. It was about 9:30am when I arrived at the Airport Authority on the second floor of the airport. I told the secretary that I didn’t feel well and needed to sit down. She called for help and Rick, the head of security, along with a fireman arrived shortly thereafter. Rick took one look at me and said "call 911!" He said I was white in color and looked like was having a seizure. In actual fact I was gasping for air. They lowered me to the ground and after checking for my nonexistent pulse started CPR and used the AED that was onsite.
It was later determined I had a ventricular fibrillation arrhythmia, which caused my sudden cardiac arrest. One jolt from the AED brought me right back into sync and on the road to recovery. It took the ambulance 10 mins to arrive so I am very thankful they had an AED in the area.
They did many tests, some more than once, and the official cause they put on my file was "Unknown". The doctors are at a total loss as the tests determined I have no blockages, no damage to my heart, and my cholesterol and blood pressure are normal. With the cause "Unknown", they are took no chances. They are medicating my blood pressure, heart rate (adrenaline blocker) and cholesterol, as well as put me on a low salt, low sugar diet. They also installed an ICD or "Internal Cardioverter Defibrillator". This is the next step up from the well known pacemaker.
The best part through all this is that I now have my own personal internal defibrillator to kick me in the chest should this happen again.
Even the doctors have no idea why I had a Cardiac Arrest. It really can happen to anyone!
