Labor Day 2024 had a relatively uneventful start for College Park, Maryland, resident Will Doyle and his family.
Will spent the afternoon with his 10-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son at the neighborhood pool before it closed for the season. Around 9:30 p.m., Will put the children to bed and quickly fell asleep himself.
The next time Will regained consciousness was in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Adventist HealthCare White Oak Medical Center, with his wife and his mother standing over him. Will would later learn that he had been unconscious for nearly a day after experiencing a serious cardiac event.
An Uncertain Future
Will’s wife, Rachel, remembers the harrowing and uncertain days that followed all too well. She arrived home on Labor Day to find Will collapsed against the bed, his knees on the floor and his face buried in the mattress. Unable to rouse her husband, Rachel called 911.
Rachel, who had worked in hospice, realized Will was exhibiting end-of-life breathing patterns. As an EMS crew arrived, Will stopped breathing altogether. The crew performed CPR and administered five shocks from an automated external defibrillator on the way to White Oak Medical Center. Will arrived at the hospital’s Emergency department in cardiac arrest. The hospital’s emergency team sprang into action and quickly stabilized Will.
He was then transferred to the ICU.
Care teams estimate that Will was unable to breathe on his own for approximately 40 minutes. Rachel said she will never forget the ambulance ride to the hospital, “thinking that I would be a widow raising the children alone.” Fortunately, that was not the case.
A Full Recovery
After being hospitalized for a week, Will walked out of White Oak Medical Center with no lasting effects from his cardiac event. Will’s doctors attribute this to the outstanding CPR he received on the way to the hospital, ensuring his brain received the necessary blood and oxygen while his heart was not beating on its own.
Will experienced ventricular fibrillation arrest, a dangerous and life-threatening irregular heartbeat that occurs when the heart’s lower chambers, or ventricles, quiver instead of pumping blood normally. With no blockages of Will’s coronary arteries or family history of heart disease or high blood pressure, doctors attribute Will’s incident to a disruption of the electrical activity in his heart.
Will received an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, a small, battery-powered device that monitors the heart’s rhythm and delivers a shock if it becomes dangerously fast or irregular, should he ever experience another ventricular fibrillation episode. The device also downloads data to Will’s phone monthly, and that data is then sent to his electrophysiologist, Omar Shams, MD.
A New Start
Will noted that his heart and life have undergone a “reboot” since the incident, and said it is a “brand new world” for him. He recently completed cardiac rehabilitation at the Adventist HealthCare Rehabilitation facility in Silver Spring and has made it a priority to eat healthy and exercise regularly. Rachel gave him a smart watch, which gathers health data to share with Dr. Shams.
Michael Chen, MD, Will’s primary cardiologist, could not be more pleased, noting there is only a 10% survival rate for what Will experienced. Will and Rachel give much of the credit to the nurses and medical staff at White Oak Medical Center.
“The ICU nurses were phenomenal and so kind,” Rachel noted. “They were compassionate, always asking us how we were doing. They even thanked us for being so kind to them! You can tell that the nurses’ hearts are really in it and that Adventist HealthCare has a culture where patients and their loved ones are truly treated like family.”
Will and Rachel recently returned to White Oak with their family to express gratitude for the Emergency and ICU teams. During the visit Rachel said, “I know you don’t always get to know your patient’s outcomes. I want you folks to know that you were part of a miracle!”
When asked what they would like to share about their experience, Will noted: “It’s important to take the time to care for yourself because by the time you find out something is wrong, it may be too late.” Rachel added, “Remember to be a good citizen and pull over for ambulances. As I can attest, every second matters for the person riding in the back.”
Learn about the full range of heart care offered through the Adventist HealthCare Heart & Vascular Institute at our website.
