The following story is a true story about a good friend of mine who has been in a Life Transformation Group that I lead for more than 7 years now. Stephen decided to bring his life to God and allow God to use it after this life-changing event....
A former college football player, Stephen Slocum, 50, liked to push himself. It
worked in
business, allowing him to become the owner of a successful
Nationwide Insurance office in
Salisbury. And it worked in the gym; he was
a regular at the Mid-Shore YMCA, keeping
himself as fit as when he
played football in his college days. Cardiac stress tests were
no
challenge for him.
But one day at the gym, something went wrong. “I noticed I didn’t
have the same ‘punch’ I
normally do,” Slocum said. “I got dizzy and
thought I better get myself checked out.”
Slocum went to Peninsula
Regional Medical Center’s Emergency Department, where tests all
seemed
normal — except for the EKG. Just 45 minutes later, he already had a stent in
place
to fix an obstructed right coronary artery.
“I couldn’t believe how quick it was,” he said. And he
felt better almost immediately, so
good, in fact that he was soon back at
the Y for his workout routine. Two weeks after the
first incident, Slocum
was exercising in the weight room when he was felled by a major
heart
attack due to a blood clot.
An off-duty Detective Sergeant from the Wicomico Sheriff’s Office,
Michael Dolch, happened to be at the Y that day and helped revive Slocum.
“I just had walked in to work out,
and some people told me there was a man having a
seizure,” Dolch
said. “I went to see if I could help, and when I went to take his vital
signs, he stopped breathing.”
Dolch had been trained for CPR, but never had used it —
now, his practice paid off. He and another bystander, an off-duty officer
from Eastern Correctional Institution, kept Slocum’s heart pumping
and airways circulating.
“When I
went into the room and saw who was working on him, I knew these were two people
who had been highly trained and I felt really good about his chances,”
said Nora Mears, a
longtime aquatics instructor at the YMCA. Mears added
her experience to boost Slocum’s
chances — not only is she a lifeguard,
but she also teaches lifeguard classes at the Y
that include CPR and
AED usage.
By
another stroke of luck, Slocum’s good friend, Dr. Jeffrey H. Etherton of
Delmarva Heart
had donated a defibrillator to the Mid-Shore YMCA 10 years
ago, to use in situations such
as this one. Mears helped shock Slocum’s
heart back into rhythm —it took three shocks.
Dr. Etherton, a YMCA
board member, said he and his wife, Michele, decided to donate the
AED
after a fellow board member and philanthropist Herb Fincher was felled by sudden
cardiac death at the gym.
“A wonderful guy had died, and it struck me that
something could have been done about it,” Etherton said. “About a month
later, my wife and I donated the defibrillator.” Since then, the YMCA’s
defibrillator has been used twice — Mears had been helping the first time, too.
Both times, the AED helped save lives.
The Ethertons’ donation came well ahead of a growing
national trend to install AEDs in
public areas, from airports to malls.
The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute says
that 95 percent of
people who have sudden cardiac arrest die from it if they are not
rapidly treated with an AED.
It made the difference for Stephen Slocum. “His color
looked really good when the
ambulance came,” Mears said. The
paramedics helped keep up the CPR on Slocum, and
transported him
to Peninsula Regional’s Emergency Department, where a “Code Ice” was
initiated — a process that uses therapeutic hypothermia to reduce damage to
the body and
brain after a severe heart attack begins to cut off vital
blood flow.
The process worked. On his 50th birthday,
November 27, Slocum was released from the
hospital, just weeks after
a heart attack that many could not have survived. Today, he is
back to
work, and back to working out, too — although now it’s at Peninsula Regional’s
Cardiac Rehab facility, where his heart is monitored while he exercises.
Even though Slocum’s heart attack happened at the gym, he
is still a strong believer in exercise. “I don’t think I would have been
able to recover as quickly — maybe even wouldn’t have survived — if
I wasn’t so fit,” he said. It’s likely that family history played a
role in his heart disease. Slocum says that many people in his family, including
his father, had cardiac problems. Exercise is a vital way to ensure that
his heart recovers and stays healthy.
Dr. Etherton was deeply moved by the fact
that the AED he donated ended up saving the life
of a dear friend. “God
works in mysterious ways. And the one most important thing I have
taken
from this — it truly does help when you are philanthropic Giving can really make
a
difference in people’s lives.”
Everything came together to allow Slocum to make it
through the cardiac crisis — a
defibrillator donated by a friend; a
YMCA employee who knew how to use it; quick-thinking,
well-trained officers
on their day off; dedicated paramedics; and a rapid, high-tech
response at Peninsula Regional.
Slocum is grateful to all who helped him that day. “I am a
man of faith, and I believe that it was by God’s grace that all the
proper people were lined up to keep me alive,” Slocum says.
This day forever changed my friend Stephen's life and he is not missing a beat in allowing God to use this event to impact the lives of others! He is the spark that has produced incredible growth in our men's group.
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