Two months ago today at this very moment God set into motion His divine plan to save my life. It would be a carefully orchestrated tapestry of miracles that would culminate in His victory over my death and the continued beating of my heart even when there was no earthly explanation as to how or why.
Out of nowhere I started to have the most severe chest pain I’d ever felt in my life. Thinking maybe it was just bad heart burn, I started to just change positions as best as I could while laid up on the couch with my torn Achilles. The pain kept getting worse and worse though, and I never get heart burn. It was the most immense pressure I’d ever felt before. It was a crushing pain, almost like I was being stomped on; like I imagine how it must feel when someone tries to stomp out your life.
It was an impending doom kind of pain, the sort of pain that makes you think you’re about to die. I started sweating profusely and it became extremely difficult to breathe. I remember foolishly thinking about having no insurance and asking in faith for God to do something in me to heal me without any medical care, to work a miracle inside of me.
I stood up to see if that would help and it was at that moment that I just dropped to the ground. I assume this is when most people drop dead from a widow maker heart attack. When I hit the ground I started to feel the most intense stabbing pain in my left arm and then my arm and hand went numb. That’s when I knew. I have seen enough movies to know that the left arm numbness is the definite sign of a heart attack.
desperate to live
Right at that moment I looked over at a pile of Sully’s toys and I started to beg and plead with God for more time with Sully. More time with my family. I prayed to God to deliver me. By the end of my plea, as I was writhing around on the ground in pain, I was almost shouting out to God with whatever short breaths I had left “DELIVER ME!” And even though I dropped down to the ground, I didn’t stay down. I didn’t drop dead.
Death couldn’t hold me down that day.
If I’m not dead then He’s not done! David in Psalms asks God to deliver him, save him, rescue him dozens of times, almost in every chapter. And as I’ve been reading through it I always look for the second half of those pleas. He almost always follows somewhere in the chapter or in the next chapter by saying “God heard my cry, He delivered me, he rescued me.”
And even if He doesn’t, David always sings in the wilderness, caves and valleys of life. He praises God no matter what. WELL, GOD HEARD MY CRY! By God’s grace I was able to pull myself back up onto the couch.
I knew I had to call someone. I was home alone and I thought to myself, “What if I die alone here on this couch?” I reached for my phone but I had dropped it on the ground when I fell. I looked down and the screen had opened up to recent calls when it was dropped, and in absolute tunnel vision I only saw one name and it was highlighted in red. It was Sarah’s.
I would later find out that I had no missed calls from Sarah that day that would’ve caused her name to show up in red on the recent calls list. But there it was; I just had to reach for it and push her name to call her. I could barely speak but I knew all I had to say was “I’m having severe chest pain, numbness in my left arm and I think I’m having a heart attack” and my wife the PA would spring into action. She said “I’m calling 911!” And I foolishly replied while actively having a heart attack, “But I don’t have insurance! Can you just come get me?”
more time
Sarah used to be a paramedic, she drove an ambulance, I knew she was a good option. God knew she was the best option. She said, “Ok I’m coming,” and then something amazing happened. The call between Sarah and I dropped as she ran into the elevator and I was all alone with God. Sarah and I may have lost connection, but I never lost connection with the miracle worker and way maker! I asked Him deliver me one more time with all the faith I had left. It wasn’t a shout, it was more like a whisper.
And in this sacred and holy moment, all of the sudden, the pain in my chest COMPLETELY went away! The pain would come back, though not nearly as severe a few moments later, but for those brief moments I felt sweet, sweet relief. Zero pain whatsoever.
Sarah would later speculate that it was at that moment that my blood was rerouted around the LAD artery to offshoot vessels called collateral vessels. A heart scan 40 minutes later would prove that I had NO SUCH collateral vessels. The blood just stopped…and yet my heart kept beating. The part of my heart that supplies oxygenated blood to my whole body, stopped! The part that gives my heart a rhythm was 100% blocked.
Looking back on this miraculous story I have come to believe that when my blood had nowhere else to go, Jesus stepped in and literally kept my heart beating! Maybe He massaged my heart as a surgeon would in open heart surgery to keep it beating or maybe He just spoke the words to make it so. I can’t wait to ask Him someday. But that’s why I believe the pain subsided. Almost as if God was telling me I was going to live. He heard my cry and He was going to give me more time with my family.
From that moment on, I never once thought that I was going to die and I never once lost consciousness. Mere minutes after this miraculous feat and total relief of pain, Sarah was out the door and running frantically to her car. She called me back and stayed on the phone with me and I remember telling her the pain had subsided for a brief moment. She asked me if I could get up and take some aspirin. I remember trying as hard as I could to stand up but I just did not have the strength. I felt like I was sinking into the couch. I felt like if I even moved an inch I was going to pass out.
Then she said, “I’m almost there; you have to get up and move to the front door.” I knew I couldn’t. I told her I couldn’t. It was a combination of weakness all over my body and not being able to walk due to my Achilles injury. She said “Then you have to try to crawl to the front door because I can’t carry you…please try to crawl!” she pleaded. I couldn’t. I could not get off the couch.
In 7 minutes she was home and saw me sweating profusely and saw my face more pale than she’d ever seen it before. She knew I was having a heart attack. She said my face was so drained of blood that it actually looked grey and lifeless. She said, “Can you make it to the car?” Once I saw her, I believe God gave me the strength to stand up and walk. I grabbed my crutches but they would be of little use because I didn’t have the strength to hold myself up on one leg, so I put my full weight on my soft splint and torn Achilles and started to walk to the door mid heart attack.
I was just just in shock and disbelief. Was I really having a heart attack? Was I really walking while having a heart attack? And I looked down at my foot in awe, and asked was I really walking on a torn Achilles?? And it must have been pure adrenaline combined with the power of Jesus that was allowing me to put my full weight on my foot because I did so without feeling any pain.
I know God was helping me walk. Maybe He was carrying me.
I got in the car and she rushed out in a whirlwind going 60mph down our little street. I saw a truck coming straight at us yelling expletives out the window and swerving to miss us but Sarah was undeterred. Her days as a paramedic had prepared her for this moment!
It seemed like we waited forever getting out on the main road and once we did we were stuck behind the slowest cars in literally the most dense construction zone in all of Parker, Colorado. Of course! Sarah swerved through traffic cones and pylons and through parking lots to get around red lights all the while asking “God are you still with us?” She said she must have said it ten times but I never even heard it once. All I heard were my own prayers for God to keep us safe on the road and to save my life. God was big enough for her questions and big enough for her doubts.
She knew right where to go and just who to call to warn them that I was coming. She said, “I’m a provider and I’m bringing in my husband and he’s having a heart attack.” What she didn’t know was that they had someone in the cath lab preparing for a scheduled stent. They immediately got him out so they could prepare it for me. They rushed me into the ER where they placed an IV in my arm and in my wrist, they ran an EKG, confirmed I was having a heart attack, and started to shave my wrist. I had no idea why they needed to shave my wrist but Sarah knew. When she asked how long until I could get into the cath lab they said, “We are taking him there right now.” Only about 5 minutes after I had gotten there. They told her to say goodbye to me and as they wheeled me out she said, “I love you…you’re the best man I know.”
I waited on the cath lab table with intense chest pain for a few minutes as everyone kept telling me, “We’re almost ready to start. We’re just waiting for the doctor to get here.” I wondered what part of the hospital she was in to be taking that long to get there since Parker Hospital is not that big!
I would later find out that she wasn’t even on site. She was driving 100mph to get there to deliver that life saving stent to me. Once she got there, all I remember from the procedure was them moving me back and forth on the table and the lights going on and off a bunch. I didn’t feel the line going through me but it went through my radial artery in my wrist all the way to my heart and to the LAD artery.
Then all of the sudden the pain subsided once again but this time for good because the stent was in. I remember the doctor coming right up next to my ear after the procedure and telling me I was going to be ok. Then I’ll never forget what she said next. She said, “Now you have a second chance.”
many miracles
I believe God worked a myriad of miracles that day to make sure that I did have a second chance at life. Because He’s not finished with me yet. He delivered me from death just as He delivered David. The odds say I that only had a 12% chance to live but God doesn’t deal in the odds. He defies the odds. Even the impossible is possible for Him.
If I’m not dead then he’s not done! I realized though that every day we all have a second chance. A chance to die to self and live fully surrendered to God. He’s not finished with you yet either. If you’re not dead then He’s not done! I almost died on March 25, 2021, but sin and death had no power over me.
It wasn’t my death day but my life day.
I was born again and I was brand new. I finally knew what it really felt like to be set free from death and even sin. I finally knew what John meant when he said if the Son sets you free you will be free indeed.
When I was moved to the ICU I felt like I had been through a fire just like Daniel’s three friends. A 40 minute fire that just went by in a blur. We knew the answer to Sarah’s question: God surely was with us every step of the way! And just like those three faithful men, I know that Jesus walked through that fire with me. I started singing of the goodness of God with Sarah by my side singing along with me in the ICU.
And then I realized something even greater—that just like those three faithful men, I came out on the other side of the fire with nothing burned except the ropes that were binding me! This fire did not harm my body; it just burned up the bondage that was inhibiting me from living a life fully devoted to Him!
God didn’t just save my heart. He CHANGED my heart! And I knew in that moment that my ropes of bondage had been burned. My chains were broken and lying on the ground of the ICU floor. I would no longer live in my sin and shame and addiction and I wouldn’t be a slave to it anymore. I truly had a second chance, a new lease on life.
Through the fire
The fire God walked me through was my heart attack. What about you? What is the fire that God has brought you through or maybe that He is bringing you through right now? If you haven’t had a fire, I say praise God! But you will. And It doesn’t have to be a near death experience for you to take hold of your second chance at life. To allow God to change your heart. Surrender your life to Him today, give Him everything, surrender your addictions, your worries, stresses and anxieties.
Believe me, when you are staring death in the face you won’t be thinking about any of those things.
So cry out to Him as David did. As I did. I believe He will hear your cry and He will deliver you. No matter what fire you are going through right now Jesus is walking through it with you. He will give you freedom too.
If it feels like you’re in the fire or the cave or the wilderness of life today then I just encourage you to let go of everything you weren’t created for. Die to an identity that was never intended for you. And live with freedom knowing full well that your only identity is in Christ. You are a child of God and today is a gift.
And as my doctor whispered in my ear, you’ve been given a second chance—a chance to start your brand new life with Jesus.
Russell Palmer is a Union College graduate who currently works as an educator in Colorado.
