Richard

I wish I could have saved my colleague Richard's life the way he (sort of) saved mine. The two year anniversary of his death is coming up on December 10th and I have no idea how he would want me to remember him. But what comes to mind is the day we went to court on a murder case in a small rural county four years ago. He worked with me as a psychological examiner and had been involved in the case which was a double homicide. I noticed the lack of metal detectors when we arrived in the courtroom and was a bit concerned at the large turn out of family members of both the defendant and the victims' families. I had spent a great deal of time preparing for this case and tried to ignore my feelings of uneasiness.

After my testimony, I looked up and saw Richard with his hands waving in the back of the court room. I was still on the witness stand and wondered why he was motioning for me to hurry. I walked back to him and he said,"it is time to go--I think there's a feud about to start." Sure enough, family members on both sides were upset with the verdict and were starting a fight. Richard grabbed my supplies and we hightailed it home. I never heard what, if anything, had happened that day--for all I knew--the fight went outside or fizzled out but I always teased Richard about the day he saved my life.

He was working with me when I had my heart attack and he was battling problems of his own. His wife had breast cancer and Richard never wavered in his care for her and was a very dedicated husband and father. He rarely complained about his situation but we talked about his high blood pressure and high stress level at times. After his wife died, his blood pressure became very high and he told me that he had been diagnosed with Long Q-T Syndrome. I didn't understand the gravity of his situation at that time and was still somewhat in denial over my own heart problems. We would sit and laugh about our "bad hearts" often, saying that given the stress of our job, it was no wonder we were "going down early."

Fast forward to two years ago--Richard had moved out of psychology for awhile and was selling insurance part-time. I saw him at a local store a couple of weeks before he died and he seemed happy. He was remarried and building a house and we chatted about how our lives were going. A couple of weeks later, I heard that he had died. He got out of the shower, told his wife he felt dizzy and that was it... I remember when I heard feeling like I had been hit with a ton of bricks. It struck too close to home and I felt so badly for his wife and daughter. When I started having rhythm problems last year and got my Implantable Cardiac Defibrillator (ICD), I thought about Richard. Why had I been so lucky to get help to save my life when Richard did not? Why didn't Richard get an ICD so that rather than that day marking the end of his life, it could have just involved a nasty shock and a trip to the hospital to get checked out?

I don't know why. But I do know that Richard is not the only one who has died from Long Q-T Syndrome. My cardiac rehab nurse gets misty-eyed when she talks about her neice, Maddy. Maddy was five years old when she walked into kindergarten class, raised her hand to go to the bathroom and collapsed and died while she was in there. The school nurse thought she was having a seizure and moved everything out of her way. A parent who was a nurse was there and wanted to start CPR but no one would let her. The staff believed that kids did not have heart problems. Maddy died waiting for someone to understand what was wrong with her.

When someone dies suddenly, people and even doctors will call it a heart attack--but often it is Sudden Death Syndrome caused by long Q-T Syndrome or other arrythmias. These deaths are preventable, especially if we get over the myth that only overweight older men have these problems.

To learn more about Sudden Death Syndrome and Long Q-T syndrome, check out the American Heart Association. Here is a risk assessment form for kids and adults can use it also to see if they need to be checked by their doctor for heart problems.

Update: Here are the new CPR guidelines.