My co-workers immediately started CPR on me. The first responders arrived on scene and they determined that I needed to be shocked back to life and they didn’t have a defibrillator so they took over CPR and they called for one. Just by the grace of God, there was an emergency medical service (EMS) worker on his day off a block away from the police station and he had his own automated external defibrillator (AED). They shocked me several times and revived me and got me to the hospital. I was placed in a medically-induced coma, and for four days after they eased me out of the coma, I was in a real state of confusion.

It was initially believed that I had a heart attack. My kidneys failed on me as well, so they really couldn’t do much with me at that point. Once they went in to do the check to see if I had any blockages, I had none, zero, nada, so they were trying to figure out what caused my sudden cardiac arrest. They diagnosed me with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Once I got the diagnosis, I was really confused because I didn’t know what HCM was. They basically told me that I had an enlarged heart and my left ventricle walls were really abnormally thick. I had to do a lot of research on that. I was really scared because they told me that because I went into ventricular fibrillation (a life-threatening arrhythmia) that it can happen again. So, they implanted an ICD-pacemaker. I was just overwhelmed because not knowing I had this all along was a whole lot to process!



They told me that my lifestyle would have to change. There’s a lot of things that I would not be able to do. I’m a guy that was active. I participated in sports, activities, and playing with my grandkids. Not being able to do that anymore full-speed like I used to was really devastating to me.

After I got my defibrillator implant, the doctor asked me “I understand you’re a police officer, right? Is there any other job you could do?” From right there, I knew my career was over.

The doctor also asked me about my family history. I told him that my father had died of heart failure at 58 years old. He recommended genetic testing for my siblings, 6 children, and 5 grandchildren. I told my siblings and my children to get the genetic testing. It pretty much fell on deaf ears. In January of 2020, I lost my brother to sudden cardiac arrest, and I was there to see him take his last breath. I’m still pushing my family members to get tested.