The last thing Ron Raidy remembers was shooting off a cannon.

His Civil War re-enactment group was nearing the end of the Hinsdale July Fourth parade. The Confederate artillery unit draws a lot of interest wherever it goes, especially when they fire the bronze cannon perched on its carriage.

“We had pushed the cannon for more than a mile,” Raidy said, “but I felt fine. I didn’t feel anything coming on.”

Instead of hearing the crowd’s cheer, he collapsed in full cardiac arrest. A few days later, he was recovering from quadruple bypass surgery at Adventist Hinsdale Hospital.

“It’s like a miracle,” Raidy said.

Indeed, Raidy is one lucky man. Although he had no history of heart trouble and he was in good shape leading up to the parade — from pushing a cannon for the last three years, he quips — he nearly died. Officials said he was not breathing for five minutes.

Lifesaving coincidences
But because people like Mike Dominguez were around, Raidy is still alive today. Dominguez, the lead house director at Adventist Hinsdale Hospital, just happened to be walking in the parade with the hospital’s float right behind Raidy. He sprang into action as soon as Raidy went down and performed CPR on the 61-year-old man.

“If he had experienced this episode of cardiac arrest anywhere else, or under different circumstances he wouldn’t have made it,” Dominguez said. “Rarely do we get such dramatic second chances in life, and when we do, the seminal question then becomes, what do I do with this new chance?”

Later Dominguez spoke with Raidy in the hospital emergency room and came away with a sense that Raidy felt a new purpose for his life.  

“As a third generation Seventh-day Adventist I am impressed to think of our lives as gifts, and with that comes the stewardship responsibility to manage that which God has entrusted to us,” Dominguez said. “I was blessed and privileged to be a part of his resuscitation effort, and I feel that Ron is enjoying his newfound opportunity as truly a gift of grace from God.”

Dominguez isn’t the only one who noticed the amazing coincidences of Raidy’s situation. After all, there wasn’t just a team of medical professionals behind Raidy, there were also firefighters armed with defibrillators.

“His timing couldn’t have been better,” said Kevin Baker, a firefighter and paramedic with the Hinsdale Fire Department. “The (Adventist Hinsdale) hospital float was right behind him, so there were a lot of medical personnel right there.”

Patient calls outcome a “miracle”
As even better luck would have it, a physician who specializes in heart rhythms was watching the parade with his family.

“I noticed all the commotion when he went down,” said Dr. Greg Lewis, an electrophysiologist who treats patients at Adventist Hinsdale Hospital. “When he wasn’t getting up, I went over and found that he was unconscious, not breathing and without a pulse.”

Lewis recognized Raidy was in danger of dying. He immediately began administering CPR, staying with it until Hinsdale Police Officer Tim Lennox arrived with an automatic external defibrillator. The AED shocked Raidy enough to resuscitate him, and Hinsdale paramedics took him to the hospital.

Firefighters said they see too many cardiac arrest cases that don’t have happy endings.

“Just knowing Mr. Raidy has had a successful outcome,” Baker said, “makes all of our work and training worthwhile.”

Lewis concurred, adding that while he diagnoses heart rhythms every day, he never expected to be doing it on his day off.

“When a cardiac arrest happens outside of the hospital, your only hope is that someone is there to witness it, and someone has immediate access to a defibrillator,” he said. “In this case, we had both of those. Were it not for those, Mr. Raidy would have been dead.”

Raidy said he wants to take CPR training in case he comes across someone who needs his help.

It’s the least he can do, Raidy said.

“It was divine intervention,” he said. “It was a miracle. The big guy has a plan for me.”