Liftoff to Life After Death | Adventist Health Portland
Story 179

Sydney:

How are you doing now?

Craig:

I'm pretty good.

Sydney:

You look great.

I love interacting with all the hospital staff and then the patients that we see even after the fact. I've never experienced anything to this depth of closure. It makes it worth what I'm doing.

Terry Johnson:

This is just a beautiful, beautiful occasion.

What stands out the most is, Craig, as you look around, this is team. This is what team looks like when team works very well together, and we're just so proud to be part of your story.

Craig:

Just so thankful for all of you. So, this is kind of a memento. It shows a rocket launching. And I guess I get to pass it out to all you guys, kind of remember what you all did.

I started really thinking about space when I was growing up. That's when Apollo, we were in the race for the moon, and I enjoyed watching the different missions. I was planning on going to Florida, this is the end of November, to see my friends that own a bed-and-breakfast in Titusville, and it overlooks the launch area where the Kennedy Space Center is. He was almost getting time for Thanksgiving, and I headed back to Portland. It was a late flight. It got delayed, actually,

Going out of Orlando.

William:

I picked him up at the terminal and we took off. We got maybe a quarter of a mile down Airport Way, and all of a sudden he quit talking. I looked over. His head was back and he was gurgling, scariest moment of my life. You know? What do I do now?

Dr. Kilbourne:

Craig was found to have multiple blockages in his heart vessels.

Dr. Neth:

Then five minutes without oxygen, your brain's gone.

William:

Pulled over, got out of the car and called 911 right away, told them I needed help, and started CPR.

I couldn't just sit there and let it happen.

Dr. Kilbourne:

So Craig had CPR for approximately 45 minutes.

William:

When a patient comes to the emergency room and they have this return on spontaneous circulation and their pump has restarted, we need to ask a question. The question is, "Are they comatose?"

Comatose essentially means, is the person following commands? If the person's not following commands, then the standard of care is to cool them. There's a bunch of inflammation that goes on in the brain, and inflammation is harmful to the brain, so they already have an initial insult. And our goal is to cool it down to prevent secondary insult.

Craig:

I woke up and I looked around, and I thought, "This doesn't look good." And the nurse then noticed that I was awake. She came over and said, "Well, hello. You've been out for a number of days." I didn't know at that time that I'd been out for about three days.

William:

I think it was a miracle, first of all, that the plane was late. It was 20 minutes late. Otherwise, I would've had Craig home, and he'd have had this in his house and probably wouldn't be here today. Somebody was looking over him to make sure that it happened where it happened. I'm just thankful he's still here.