SARASOTA – Carl Reynolds of Carl Reynolds’ Law was at North Port High School attending his son’s basketball tournament. By all accounts an ordinary day, until his heart stopped.
“I had an irregular heartbeat that for whatever reason turned into a terminal rythym and it stopped. I dropped basically dead on the floor. I was coaching my son’s basketball team and I fell flat on my face,” says Reynolds.
What happened next is nothing short of a miracle.
“And a little guardian angel came and performed CPR on me for 20 minutes until EMT’s got there and I’m alive today because of it,” says Reynolds.
Alive, and grateful thanks to a TV-shy retired nurse who chose not to be interviewed. Reynolds received a defibrillator implant and round the clock care for several days at Fawcett. All the while, Reynolds itching to escape.
“I gave them a hard time, I was trying to get out of here sooner than they wanted to let me go! I did laps up and down this hallway and offered to race anybody if they just let me leave,” says Reynolds.
Unfortunately, Reynolds’ brush with death is more common than you may think.
“There are about a thousand people every day that have a cardiac arrest like this. Unfortunately only about 10 percent of them will survive,” says Fawcett Cardiology and Cath Lab Medical Director Melody Strattan.
As for Reynolds, his take on his second chance at life is simple.
REYNOLDS: “Since this incident, I don’t sweat the small stuff!”
And that money plant? Well, the nurses and doctors at Fawcett plan on plenty of pizza parties