Teen's text to his dad: 'Thank you for saving my life'

For the Chapman family of Hudsonville, Michigan, life last fall was comfortably normal. It was just another night in September, early in the school year.

Rachel and Chad are both middle school teachers. She teaches language arts and special education; Chad, a coach, teaches physical education. They were each driving home after school that Wednesday and decided to meet for dinner at a local pub. After they ate, they got a to-go order of burgers and fries for their sons, 17-year-old Jake and 14-year-old Lukas.

While the boys sat eating at the kitchen counter, Rachel worked on lesson plans in the bedroom. Chad was near the kitchen, idly listening to his sons talk about their day. Then he heard it – what he calls "a weird, struggling, gasping, air-sucking noise."

He looked over to his sons and Jake had "a weird, contorted facial expression."

Initially, Chad thought Jake was being silly, trying to make Lukas laugh. He called Jake's name, just to be sure. No response. He then called it out again.

"When he didn't respond," Chad said, "I knew something was obviously wrong."

So did Rachel. She'd never heard that tone in her husband's voice – urgent, panicked, terrified, loud. She rushed into the kitchen just as Chad yelled "Get Mom!" to Lukas. Then Jake went limp. Rachel grabbed her phone and called 911, screaming into the phone.

Chad started CPR, which he had known for years.

Four hours earlier, during a school meeting, Chad had been told that he needed to renew his CPR training. And now, here he was, using CPR on his oldest son.

He knew what he needed to do – be forceful with compressions to mimic the rhythm of the heart – but he feared hurting his son.

"Then I looked down and saw his gray skin, his blue lips, his blue eyelids," Chad said. "I started making the compressions more and more forceful because I knew it was a life-or-death situation."

In less than four minutes, paramedics arrived and took over, shocking Jake's heart twice to bring back a sustainable rhythm. At the hospital, Jake was put into a medically induced coma while doctors determined what caused his heart to stop and how to keep it from happening again.

He had, oddly enough, been in that very hospital five days earlier when he suffered a concussion while playing football. The family was told the concussion and cardiac arrest were unrelated.

Doctors told the family, Rachel said, that Jake is "in the 20% category where they don't know the cause. They did all the genetic testing. It was just a completely random cardiac arrest."

Jake was in a medically induced coma for six days. Waking up, he only remembered leaving school to drive home that Wednesday.

"When I got my phone back, I remember turning it on and I had so many text messages and notifications that people were praying for me," he said. "I wasn't expecting to see that at all."

Jake spent two tough weeks in the hospital. He couldn't stop vomiting; being intubated made that even worse. Already thin, he lost 30 pounds. He contracted pneumonia. He underwent a procedure to place in his chest an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, or ICD, a device to monitor and correct irregular heartbeats. It relieved a lot of stress for the family, yet the surgery left Jake in a lot of pain.

"We had a hard time sorting out which pain was from cardiac arrest and which from surgery," Rachel said.

They did their best to stay optimistic, celebrating small victories every single day.

"He could drink something and keep it down," Rachel said. "He could sit up in bed, and then in a chair."

After two weeks, Jake just wanted to go home. His parents wanted him there, too, though Rachel worried about how he was coping cognitively. Her son who always had boundless energy was now taking forever to tie his shoes. His pediatrician, a family friend, assured them that the body and brain take time to heal.

At first, Jake went through outpatient sessions for occupational, physical and speech therapy. As a young, strong athlete, he zipped through physical therapy, then occupational. He was soon given the OK to drive and cleared to play basketball. When he checked into his first game, the crowd gave him a standing ovation.

He was nervous at first: What if his heart stopped again? Having an ICD provided some comfort. So did taking things one day at a time, the support of his family and medical team, and their stalwart faith, which remains stronger than ever.

"We had such an incredible community of people praying for us and taking care of us," Rachel said.

Gradually, Jake learned to trust his body. He spent the summer working in grounds maintenance at an apartment complex.

What he – what all of the Chapmans – went through has brought this tight-knit family even closer. They call Jake their "10 percenter" because only about 1 in 10 adults (9.3%) who have a cardiac arrest outside a hospital survive, according to American Heart Association statistics. The hospital staff told them that Jake's positive outcome was in large part due to Chad immediately giving him CPR.

Only after Jake heard his parents sharing in an interview their side of what happened did he realize the role his father's quick thinking and CPR knowledge had played in his survival. He immediately texted his dad: "Thank you for saving my life."

The family has become strong advocates for everyone to learn CPR, starting with Jake's entire basketball team.

"My message for people is that whether you're trained or not, you have to do something," Chad said. "The only wrong is to not do anything at all."

Each member of the family is acutely aware of how quickly life can change. Yet life goes on, giving them a fresh outlook, an ever-grateful perspective.

"It will always," Jake said, "be part of me."

Stories From the Heart chronicles the inspiring journeys of heart disease and stroke survivors, caregivers and advocates.