'I hadn't ever been dead before': CTV News Vancouver's Mike McCardell and his cardiologist reflect on close call
Mike McCardell doesn’t remember much about those three days in September.
And what he does recall, he tries to reason, doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense.
“I was in a blackness – total, absolute blackness," he says. "I could touch the blackness, I could taste the blackness."
And somewhere in that, he thinks, was light.
“That’s what everybody wants to hear: you saw a light,” McCardell says. “Yeah I did, I saw a light. But it was red.”
McCardell laughs.
Somehow, in the span of a few short weeks, he seems to have grown uncomfortably at ease with the fact for a few moments or minutes, he’s not sure exactly how long, his heart shut down.
“The heart went out of rhythm, that’s all, like it was squirting out when it should have been squirting in,” he says. “And then it stopped.”
It wasn’t a heart attack.
But a type of irregular heartbeat known as ventricular fibrillation.
And it seemed to come out of nowhere, though in retrospect, McCardell says, those close to him, from his CTV News photographer, to his editor, to his wife’s boss, were telling him, he didn’t look well.
Hindsight being what it is, he admits, perhaps, he should have listened.
“Would I be bright enough to think that because I’m dizzy and I have to hold onto a wall and I have to sit down, that something’s wrong? No!” McCardell said.
His wife’s manager insisted on driving the pair to the UBC hospital.
McCardell took a few steps, then collapsed in the driveway
“(My doctor) said, 'I never expected to see you again, ever. You were dead,'” McCardell recalls.
An emergency room team, including Dr. Noah Alexander, as well as cardiologist Dr. Graham Wong, brought McCardell back to life.
“He knew what he was doing so he crushed right through the ribs, broke two ribs so he could get right to the heart,” McCardell says.
Wong calls McCardell lucky.
He describes the cardiac arrest as “an electrical problem where the rhythm of the heart changed from a regular one to a chaotic one.”
Something, Wong says, that unlike a heart attack, doesn’t often come with clear warning signs, and even if it did, they're typically unique to each person.
“The heart, essentially, instead of beating, quivers,” Wong says.
McCardell was placed into a coma.
His body temperature was regulated.
And he was transferred to Vancouver General Hospital’s cardiac intensive care unit.
Somewhere in those three days, he received a special implant.
“This is me and my defibrillator,” McCardell says, showing me the outline, about the circumference of a golf ball, under his breast pocket.
“If it gets out of beat, this thing sends a shock to it. A very strong shock, like the kick of a horse, I’m told.”
He doesn’t want to find out.
Wong calls the “fancy pacemaker” like a “paramedic in your pocket."
“Almost like an insurance policy,” Wong says. “You hope you never need to use it.”
“I feel better. I feel lucky. I feel blessed. I feel amazed,” McCardell says.
We're interrupted when a golden leaf falls from a tree above us right into his hand.
He smiles: "Holy mackerel!"
And Wong adds one big reason McCardell likely survived is not luck, but because of where he collapsed, with trained professionals just seconds away.
He’s now advocating for anyone who is able to get trained in how to administer CPR with organizations like the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, or St. John's Ambulance.
“Anybody can save a life,” Wong says.
And when I ask McCardell what advice he might give to his former self?
“Listen to your camera guy, listen to your editor, whoever it is, your wife,” he says.
“If they say you look crummy and you should go to a doctor, go to a doctor.”
“Now I’m officially not dead,” McCardell adds.
“So do I have something to be thankful for? You bet!”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Young people 'tortured' if stolen vehicle operations fail, Montreal police tell MPs
One day after a Montreal police officer fired gunshots at a suspect in a stolen vehicle, senior officers were telling parliamentarians that organized crime groups are recruiting people as young as 15 in the city to steal cars so that they can be shipped overseas.
'It was joy': Trapped B.C. orca calf eats seal meat, putting rescue on hold
A rescue operation for an orca calf trapped in a remote tidal lagoon off Vancouver Island has been put on hold after it started eating seal meat thrown in the water for what is believed to be the first time.
Man sets self on fire outside New York court where Trump trial underway
A man set himself on fire on Friday outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump's historic hush-money trial was taking place as jury selection wrapped up, but officials said he did not appear to have been targeting Trump.
Sask. father found guilty of withholding daughter to prevent her from getting COVID-19 vaccine
Michael Gordon Jackson, a Saskatchewan man accused of abducting his daughter to prevent her from getting a COVID-19 vaccine, has been found guilty for contravention of a custody order.
Mandisa, Grammy award-winning 'American Idol' alum, dead at 47
Soulful gospel artist Mandisa, a Grammy-winning singer who got her start as a contestant on 'American Idol' in 2006, has died, according to a statement on her verified social media. She was 47.
She set out to find a husband in a year. Then she matched with a guy on a dating app on the other side of the world
Scottish comedian Samantha Hannah was working on a comedy show about finding a husband when Toby Hunter came into her life. What happened next surprised them both.
B.C. judge orders shared dog custody for exes who both 'clearly love Stella'
In a first-of-its-kind ruling, a B.C. judge has awarded a former couple joint custody of their dog.
Saskatoon police to search landfill for remains of woman missing since 2020
Saskatoon police say they will begin searching the city’s landfill for the remains of Mackenzie Lee Trottier, who has been missing for more than three years.
Shivering for health: The myths and truths of ice baths explained
In a climate of social media-endorsed wellness rituals, plunging into cold water has promised to aid muscle recovery, enhance mental health and support immune system function. But the evidence of such benefits sits on thin ice, according to researchers.