The Shimmins celebrate their very own holiday miracle.
This Thanksgiving Barb and Ed Shimmin have a lot to be thankful for as December marks the eight-year anniversary of their own Christmas miracle.
Dec. 1, 2013, Barb and Ed were driving home from Hazen, N.D. having spent the Thanksgiving weekend with Ed’s daughter.
Barb was driving that day, which was unusual, and about 60 miles west of Devils Lake, Ed began experiencing symptoms of a heart attack. Instead of calling 911 and stopping along the highway Ed told Barb, “Just drive!” They arrived at Mercy Hospital in Devils Lake within an hour and Ed was immediately assessed and transferred by a fixed wing air ambulance to Grand Forks. He was taken straight to the Cath Lab where he had two stints implanted.
After just a couple of days in the hospital, he was discharged. Ed was determined to get on the road to spend their winter in Arizona. At a post-op appointment with his cardiologist in Grand Forks, he was cleared for travel. So, they were off!
They had taken turns driving and while Barb was driving, once again, Ed had a sudden cardiac arrest. “He was unresponsive. No pulse, no respiratory effort. He was gone. “I stopped the car as quickly as I could, opened the door, reclined the seat, and started CPR. I didn’t even undo the seatbelt. I must have administered CPR for four to five minutes, I could see the car clock. I didn’t even turn the car off. After he responded somewhat and was breathing on his own, I called 911 and told them I had a cardiac patient, needed an ambulance, and where is the nearest hospital?” She was told the nearest hospital was Valentine, Nebraska. They were approximately 20 miles south of Valentine, basically the middle of nowhere. She turned the car around on the highway and sped off down the highway toward Valentine. Because of their location, cell phone service was very poor, the calls kept dropping. A call would drop and 911 would call back. Barb would ask Ed every few minutes if he was okay. He would only reply with grunts and moans. When it was all said and done Barb figured she had nine dropped calls from 911. They met the ambulance on the highway in the middle of nowhere and Ed was transferred to the cart and the ambulance raced on with Barb not far behind. Before taking off, though, she was able to send with the ambulance crew Ed’s medical records from Grand Forks, as she knew right where they were.
Barb sat in the waiting room and waited. Finally, the doctor came out and said “Ed is one in 100 patients that survive. He owes you big time.”
After testing and monitoring, it was determined that Ed needed to be transferred to a facility with cardiologists. He was transferred to Kerney, Nebraska. There was no ground ambulance available so once again he was flown. Barb drove. It was December. It was dark, cold and snowy. At this point, and understandably so, Barb was pretty shook up. She had a GPS, but needed help to enter the address of the next hospital. She asked a man at a gas station for help. He told her his wife is on an ambulance crew and she could probably help, and so she did. During the five-hour drive Barb had no way of finding out about Ed’s condition. On the way, she called Ed’s daughter and her own daughter. She finally received a call from the hospital with an update on his condition. She was told that when she arrived at the hospital to call the hospital and let them know of her arrival, stay in the car, and security would come out to escort her inside. It was not a safe neighborhood. That was Saturday night. In the hospital he was once again monitored, and tests were performed, and once again it was determined that Ed needed to be transferred. This time to Creighton University Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska. As the name implies Creighton University Hospital is a teaching hospital. The cardiologist taking care of Ed there actually had Ed’s cardiologist back in Grand Forks as a student when he was in medical school.
This hospital was only about 150 miles from Kerney, but the traffic was heavier than the previous roads Barb had driven so far. The other roads were lonely and desolate and Barb said, “it’s a good thing too, ‘cause I know I was driving too fast.”
Barb’s daughter surprised her and came to the hospital in Omaha on Tuesday “and she was a Godsend.” She sat with Barb while Ed underwent another procedure to implant a pacemaker/defibrillator. They waited in Ed’s patient room instead of a waiting room because they did not know how long the procedure would take and they wanted to be available to receive any updates and information. The doctor finally came in after about six hours and explained the events of the surgery. It was at that time that Barb and her daughter learned that Ed had crashed a couple of times during the operation. Friday, Ed was discharged from that hospital and again they were on their way to Arizona. Barb drove as Ed was on strict doctor’s orders – No driving for six months – This time they kept their route to the interstates to allow for quicker access to hospitals along the way should that become a concern again.
Ed went to 36 sessions of cardiac rehab where he was fitted with wires and closely monitored. Barb had to drive him to and from each of those sessions twenty miles round trip “and I was happy to do it” she recalls.
Incidentally, these two cardiac events were not related to each other.
Oddly, the only thing Ed really remembers about everything is having the sensation that there was a pin poking him in the top of his head.
Ed recently underwent a procedure to upgrade his pacemaker/defibrillator to a “newer model.” Everything went well with that, and he is feeling great!
