By Alyssa Dutton, intern
TRUSSVILLE – During the hot summer months, people often exert themselves outside in the heat doing summer activities or outside work. These strenuous activities combined with the heat of an Alabama summer may occasionally mask symptoms of serious underlying health conditions.
Such was the case for Rick Sanders, a physical therapist from Oneonta who suffered a heart attack on December 24, 2022, after experiencing subtle warning signs the summer prior.
While heart attacks are often associated with other health conditions, such as obesity, diabetes and smoking, none of these things were the case for Sanders, who in addition to being a PT, is also a triathlete.
“My history of being physically fit speaks for itself; that’s why the whole thing has been hard to believe,” Sanders said. “I’m a very active person, I do a lot of activities. I’m a physical therapist, and so I know the importance of trying to stay active and being in good condition. … I had trained for years as a triathlete and distance runner. As a matter of fact, 10 years ago, I finished second in the State of Alabama Senior Olympics on a bicycle for 20 km and 40 km.
“In my opinion, and opinion of others, I was probably one of the healthiest 67-year-olds in North Alabama when all this took place. Three weeks prior to my heart attack, I had a wellness checkup at my primary care physician and I was declared in perfect health; all my blood levels were better than normal.”
Sanders said he basically had no warning signs, except for two mild episodes the previous summer. The first happened on July 4, 2022, while spending time with his family at their pool.
“We had family at our home and the pool was very active,” he said. “I’m usually the one right in the middle of all the activity, but I sat over on the side of the pool, on the deck, with my head down and slept basically all afternoon. Did not feel like playing in the water at all. Most of my family has identified that as something very much out of the ordinary for me, and I tend to agree with them.”
The other event, he said, happened about a week or two later when he went outside to do some normal daily activities.
“Most Saturdays, I go to a little convenient store and get muffins for my household,” Sanders said. “That particular day, a little after noon, I became nauseous and ended up vomiting four times in about an hour. I attributed that to a bad muffin, but it turns out that was probably another precursor to my heart attack.”
Sanders said he also noticed his endurance was not quite what it used to be.
Fast forward to the Friday before Christmas 2022: Sanders said he was making some last-minute checks on his property to prepare for a cold front when he became short of breath and nauseated.
“It was a very unusual event,” he said. “I went upstairs where Julie, my bride, was busy preparing us something to eat. … I said, ‘Julie, I just don’t feel good.’
“She said, ‘Oh, come on, you’ve got to feel good; this is Christmas Eve eve, and the grandkids are coming over.’
“I said, ‘I really, really don’t feel good,’ and as a matter of fact, I went to bed around 8 p.m. that night and slept all night.”
Sanders woke up the next morning, Christmas Eve, at 7:30 a.m., and walked into the kitchen where he soon found himself doubled over on the bar, short of breath and nauseated with a tightness in his chest.
“I had no pain; no pain in my chest, no pain radiating in my arm or back,” he said. “I really didn’t want to believe what I thought was happening, so I went and got in the recliner thinking that would help, which it did not.”
Sanders woke his wife, Julie, and told her she needed to take him to the hospital immediately.
“She looked at me and didn’t ask any questions,” he said. “She knew I meant business.”
Sanders suggested going to a hospital in Gadsden, but Julie insisted on taking him to Ascension St. Vincent’s Blount, which was closer to their home.
On the way to the hospital, Julie held her husband’s hand and prayed for their safety and his healing.
“Very short, very sweet, and then we left and went to Ascension St. Vincent’s Blount,” Sanders said. “The thing I’d like to emphasize about this event is the fact that, you know, it doesn’t matter how long or how short your prayer is; if you’re sincere and you have faith in the One that you’re talking to, that prayer will be heard. … Two months after the fact, I was recovering at home, and I was sitting outside in a swing under a shade tree and it was like the Lord spoke to me. He spoke to my heart, and He said, ‘You wouldn’t be here today if it hadn’t been for that prayer of your wife.’ It just broke me … I truly believe that short prayer saved my life. … That prayer got me to the hospital.”
When Sanders arrived at the Ascension St. Vincent’s Blount emergency room, his heartrate was 40 BPM. The ER staff discussed the possibility of flying him by helicopter to the nearest in-patient hospital, but he was too unstable at the time to be moved.
“The nurses at St. Ascensions Blount, one of which went to school with my daughter, they were just excellent,” Sanders said. “Their care and concern was very outstanding. The physician that was working at the emergency room, he certainly made the right decisions and the right calls to bring me up to a stable condition.”
After being stabilized, Sanders was moved to Ascension St. Vincent’s East, near Trussville, where he found himself under the care of cardiologist Dr. Jason Thompson and cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Adam Witcher.
“(Mr. Sanders) definitely stands out in my memory because he came in on Christmas Eve,” Dr. Witcher said. “He came in with chest pain. Thankfully he did the right thing and came to the doctor. I got a heart cath and it showed that he had really severe coronary artery disease and he actually didn’t need to leave the hospital.”
Dr. Witcher said he told Sanders he needed heart surgery, specifically bypass grafting, a procedure that involves taking a blood vessel from another part of the body and attaching it to the coronary artery above and below the area of blockage.
“He pulled up a chair and sat down beside Julie and he very clearly laid out what was going to happen and told us about the surgery procedure,” Sanders said. “I was a little hesitant at first … but the more he sat there and talked, the more I knew I could trust him. With that in mind, I felt like I was in such good hands.”
At that time, the platelets needed to perform the bypass grafting were not available, and Sanders had to wait in the hospital until platelets arrived the following Thursday. He was then prepped for surgery the next morning, Friday, Dec. 30.
The surgery lasted six and a half hours and when Sanders got back to the recovery room, his wife later told him, Dr. Witcher came and stood at his bed for one solid hour, silently watching the monitors.
“I believe he was there because he truly cared about his client and he wanted to know firsthand if anything was going wrong or not,” Sanders said. “I really appreciate that.”
Speaking of Sanders’ atypical case, Dr. Witcher said he wants to emphasize that coronary disease and heart attacks can happen to anyone.
“(Sanders was) a very healthy guy and you would be surprised that this would happen to him, but it did,” he said. “There are definitely high-risk groups, you know – if you’re overweight, diabetic, and smoking definitely puts you at higher risk of having coronary disease – but even people which are none of those (like Sanders) can also have coronary disease.”
With Sanders having been the prime picture of health, one question this experience raised was how something like this could have happened to him. The answer he found was family genetics.
“I just sat there in the room not able to believe where I was and why I was there because of my experience of trying to be healthy all of these years,” Sanders said. “The physicians that took care of me, they said, ‘The only arteries that you had blocked were in your heart – you’re clear all the way through everything else – and therefore we can declare your condition caused by your genetics, or it’s family-oriented.’
“My mother had eight people in her ancestry that died of a heart attack, or something related to that, and that’s significant,” he continued. “So, I was very adamant to my brother and my sister about them being tested to make sure that their cardiovascular system was up to speed, because I sure didn’t want them to have to go through what I had gone through.”
Sanders was discharged to go home on Jan. 4, 2023. After being home approximately two weeks, Dr. Witcher called him to discuss his recovery progress.
“Mr. Sanders was an incredible patient,” Dr. Witcher said. “He did everything right. He came in when he was supposed to and did everything that we asked him to. He took all the medicines that he needed to take. He was just a great patient from the beginning.”
At almost seven months post-op, Sanders said he can now walk four miles over uneven terrain with no problem and no shortness of breath.
“Being so physically active all my life and then having to start at zero and build myself back, it has been a hard road to understand,” he said. “I am getting better endurance and improving strength, (and) I’m just so thankful that I get more chances to do things and be with family and friends, and to be able to encourage others to not neglect their health.
“I’m so blessed to have family members that believe and pray for others, and I’m thankful that the Lord has put me in a position where I can speak about these things to others. I can speak how powerful prayer is. I have learned that there is so much power in the prayers of the brothers and sisters that are continuing in the faith, (and) I can’t thank them enough.”
Sanders said this entire experience has raised his awareness of how important it is for people to have their heart and cardiovascular system checked out thoroughly.
“I’ve experienced a lot of goodness coming out of this because it’s got some people that I know concerned about their health and they’re getting things checked out,” he said. “We need to take warning signs seriously. I would encourage people go see your doctor, go see a cardiologist if there’s a question, and go see your primary care physician and get checked out thoroughly. I was really close to death, but I was able to go back home, and that’s most important.”