Randy's Story

On Randy Eddy’s Centerville farm, on a warm summer day much like any other, life was proceeding as usual. Randy was baling hay, working alone in his field.

“It started off with just this simple thing,” the tall, lean 53-year-old said. “Some trouble with the baler. No big deal.” As he’d done countless times before, Randy jumped from his tractor. In minutes, the baler was fixed and Randy was ready to get back to work.

Then, life as Randy knew it changed.

In a heartbeat.

“I couldn’t catch my breath,” he said. “I felt really warm, and I was thinking, ‘Man, the heat doesn’t usually bother me.’”

Randy’s tractor is air-conditioned. He got in and tried to cool off. “But I was sweating like I’d just gotten out of a hot shower. I mean, it was running off me. And then my left arm started hurting, and I thought, ‘I’m in big trouble now.’”

Randy had a cellphone with him. Instinctively, he called the one person he knew he could always ask for help.

“When I heard his voice, I knew something wasn’t right,” said Randy’s wife, Denise. “We’ve been married 28 years, and he’s never once called me from the field and asked me to come get him. So I knew something was the matter. I honestly didn’t think about a heart attack ... I just knew I needed to get there and get help.”

An ambulance from Mercy Medical Center in Centerville followed Denise into the field. “I could see him slumped over in the tractor,” she said. “I tried to get him out ... and he kind of fell out.” “My legs were like rubber,” Randy recalled, “and I had trouble talking. [The emergency medical technicians] were asking me questions, but I just couldn’t answer.”

For Randy and Denise, each second seemed like hours. But in seconds, Randy was being stabilized and transported to Mercy Medical Center in Centerville.

“Time saved is heart muscle saved,” said Mary Lou Sales, R.N., Emergency Department/Specialty Clinic Manager and of the first emergency department nurses to treat Randy. “When a person has a heart attack, that means something is blocking the flow of blood through arteries to the heart. The longer that blockage lasts, the more death of heart muscle you will have. So the ultimate thing to do is get that patient to a cardiac catheterization lab that can open up that artery.”

Even before the ambulance left Randy’s hayfield, the Mercy team in Centerville had received his vital signs, including an EKG — which indicated that Randy would need specialized cardiac care at Mercy Medical Center – Des Moines. The doctors dispatched a Mercy One helicopter, and it arrived minutes after Randy reached the Centerville hospital. Minutes after that, Randy was in the air.

“It’s a two-hour car ride to Des Moines,” said Denise. “The pilot told me we’d be there in 28 minutes,” said Randy. “And those 28 minutes really flew by.”

In those 28 minutes, the cardiac care team in Des Moines had prepared for Randy’s arrival. The moment the Mercy One helicopter landed, “People were just everywhere,” said Randy. “Everybody had a job to do, and they were doing it. They’ve got a system in place ... it was like a well-oiled machine.”

Eleven minutes later, a life-saving stent was making its way to the blockage in one of Randy’s coronary arteries, opening the obstruction and restoring blood flow to Randy’s heart. “Eleven minutes. It just seems unbelievable to me,” he said.

Little more than two hours after finding her husband slumped over the steering wheel of his tractor, Denise was just as surprised to find him sitting up in a hospital bed, eating a sandwich. “His color was good. He was talking. It was kind of amazing to think that hours ago, I didn’t know if he was going to be OK. And now he’s hungry!”

In a nearby hotel that night, Denise found it difficult to sleep — but was comforted knowing that she could call Mercy to check on her husband at any time. And she did. “I called his nurse, Michelle, probably three or four times that night to check on him and she always let me know how he was doing: ‘resting comfortably, no chest pain, doing great.’”

Denise noted that the Mercy staff not only addressed Randy’s medical needs, but also the emotional needs of her entire family, including her and Randy’s adult daughters and Randy’s parents, all of whom had gathered to be with Randy during his treatment and recovery. “Mercy didn’t just take care of Randy. I felt like they took care of me and my family,” said Denise. “We were all a part of it, and the people at Mercy cared about making sure that we were informed about what was going on, that we understood what was happening, and that we knew that everything was going to be OK. Any time I had a question, there was somebody there to answer it.”

And not more than 72 hours after it all began, Randy and Denise were on their way back to their farm in Centerville. “It’s surreal to me,” said Denise. “Three days ago, my whole world just stopped. And now, somebody gave it back to me.”

Today, follow-up visits show the quick treatment Randy received not only saved his life, but also his heart muscle. “I have no damage,” said Randy. “To me, that’s unbelievable.”

Already living a life of vigorous activity, Randy committed to even more regular exercise, which he now enjoys with Denise. A Mercy dietitian suggested small changes in their diet. “I think we’ve done a really good job with that,” said Denise. Considering Randy’s family history of heart disease, “We can’t control genetics. But now that we’ve been given this second chance, diet and exercise are two things we have control over.”

Even today, the events of that warm summer day still live vividly in Denise’s mind. She knows how close she came to losing the man she fell in love with, the husband she married, the father of her children.

Her partner. Her life.

“I didn’t know if I was 15 minutes from my world changing,” she said. “Mercy took care of Randy and they took care of me. And really gave me back everything I wanted.”

Every day. In every way.