Among the Handful of Survivors
By Tom Brand
June 19th, 2013. Ten days into my hospital stay. Four days post-quadruple bypass. Somewhere between the endless wake-ups, IV beeps, and my tailbone staging a full-blown mutiny, I was just plain worn out. I hadn’t slept more than 45 minutes at a time. My body felt like it had been run through a farm auger—and not even for a good reason. I was desperate to sleep like a human being instead of a mannequin on a backboard.
Beth—who’d barely rested herself—asked the nurses if there was anything we could do. The nurses brought in a battalion of pillows, propped me on my side like I was the prince of the linen closet, and said they’d bump me to the front of evening rounds and the back of morning ones. If all went well, I might finally get that elusive, mythical creature: uninterrupted sleep.
By 11:30 PM, I was out.
When I cracked one eye open, it was 3:05 AM. Over three hours of sleep. A miracle, honestly. I even had the nerve to get a little hopeful. “If I can hold this pace,” I thought, “I might get a full night, and may even be heading home soon.”
Then I blinked—and the next thing I knew, I was surrounded.
Someone was asking, “Tom, can you tell us where you are?” I knew I was at Heartland (now Mosaic), but for some reason, couldn't make the words come out of my mouth. I started to say St. Luke’s, but knew that was wrong. Somehow, I said St. Francis. I finally landed somewhere around “hospital.” And then everything faded again.
There was something pressing on my chest—hard. Someone yelling. A jolt that made my body flail like being hit by a bolt of lightning. I remember the kind of disorientation that makes dreams feel real and reality feel like a punchline.
“Breathe, Tom. You’ve got to breathe.”
I wanted to respond, but I couldn’t. I wanted to breathe, but I couldn’t. I wanted to punch whoever was on my chest, but I was too busy fighting, trying to get fully awake.
Four shocks. Twenty minutes of CPR. A Code Blue team that moved like clockwork and never lost their nerve. Somewhere in the chaos, I came back.
My first words?
“Well hi, everybody!” Because apparently, when you crash in a hospital bed, your midwestern manners stick around longer than your pulse.
Then, it hit me. Where was Beth? I yelled out for her and saw her come through the crowd of nurses and doctors. I apologized through tears. “I’m so sorry,” I kept saying. It wasn’t guilt—it was just the sheer weight of what she’d seen.
They told me I was going back to the ICU. I begged them not to, as the recollection of ICU and recovering seemed like such a step backwards. I pleaded like a kid trying to stay up past bedtime. “Please don’t send me back down there.” My recollections of the time there post-surgery were not positive. But the decision was already rolling on wheels down the hallway.
Dr. Nellestein, who was initially going to do my bypass surgery, met us en route. I told him I’d just been trying to sleep and that I made the mistake of wanting to sleep on my side. He assured me it didn’t and that none of it was my fault. Still, I felt like maybe I’d triggered something. Like maybe if I’d just laid flatter or breathed deeper or prayed harder...
As we rolled down closer to my relocation, I turned to the nurses and asked:
“Do you have someone you love? A husband? A wife?”
They looked at me funny—like I’d just come back from the dead.
Which I had. But I wasn’t done.
“Tell them. Tell them as soon as you get home. Don’t wait.”
I meant it. I still mean it.
Beth woke up around 3:20 and checked on me. She found me with my eyes open and making “an awful sound.” She tried to get me to respond, but to no avail. She stepped out into the hallway and shouted, “I need some help and I need some help now.” Lori—a nurse who’ll forever be one of my heroes—was already on her way, tipped off by a nurse watching my monitor who’d seen something “not quite right.”
Lori tried to wake me. Nothing. She turned to Beth and told her to “Push the code blue button.” Then she started chest compressions right there in the room. A few minutes later, Kassi took over those chest compressions (she was the one on my chest when I heard someone say “You’ve got to breathe, Tom.”)
They shocked me four times. At the third, Beth told me later, she thought I was gone.
I wasn’t.
I don’t remember much outside of what I described, but I do remember this: I wanted to live. I wasn’t ready to go. I had an insatiable appetite to live. There was something primal, deep in my chest that said, “Not yet.”
I survived. Odds say I shouldn’t have. Studies (depending on which ones you read) show only 12 to 23 percent of people survive in-hospital CPR. I’ll let God explain the why when I get there (but there are regular reminders every day anyway). The how? That was teamwork. Lori. Kassi. The doc who was on call. The whole medical team working together and their focus locked in place. A team that ran toward chaos and brought me back from it.
And Beth. The one who stood beside me, held my hand, and bore witness to a miracle no one should ever have to watch.
I mark this day every year now—not out of fear or trauma, but with awe. This is my CPR anniversary. A rebirth. The day I got to stay.
To the staff at Mosaic Life Care: Thank you. You were God’s hands that night.
To my family: I love you. Always.
To my friends: You mattered then. You still matter now. Thank you for loving me back to life.
And to anyone reading this—go tell someone you love them. Not later. Now.
Because you never know when your middle of the night turns into a miracle.
Touch someone’s heart.
Hold someone’s hand.
Say I love you.
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