We were awoken last night at 2:32 am by a call from the local police. My brother-in-law had a massive heart attack and they were rushing him to the hospital.
He apparently made his way to a neighbors apartment and pounded on the door before going into cardiac arrest. The neighbor didn’t know what was going on and called 911 to report the incident. When police arrived he was unresponsive, no pulse or breathing. They performed CPR and used a AED to get his heart going again.
Upon arrival at the hospital he was still unresponsive and they couldn’t get him to regain consciousness. They immediately put him in ICU, intubated him and pumped him with drugs to sedate and immobilize his muscles and iced him down to lower his body temp to 90*.
Now he sits as a popsicle until tomorrow and then they warm him back up and see if he has any chance at surviving. Nobody knows how long he was in arrest before they got to him but for every minute the survival chances drop by 10%. He’s probably got less than a 50/50 chance at survival and less than a 30% chance of not having severe brain damage.
His condition is now minute by minute and we won’t know where anything stands until he survives the next 48 hours and they can begin really testing. Right now, the only focus is to keep him alive until then.
Helluva day.