'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
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Cuban government apologizes to Montreal-area family after delivering wrong body
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
What is changing about Canada's capital gains tax and how does it impact me?
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
'Anything to win': Trudeau says as Poilievre defends meeting protesters
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is accusing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of welcoming 'the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists,' after the Conservative leader was photographed meeting with protesters, which his office has defended.
Northern Ont. lawyer who abandoned clients in child protection cases disbarred
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
'One of the single most terrifying things ever': Ontario couple among passengers on sinking tour boat in Dominican Republic
A Toronto couple are speaking out about their 'extremely dangerous' experience on board a sinking tour boat in the Dominican Republic last week.
Boeing's financial woes continue, while families of crash victims urge U.S. to prosecute the company
Boeing said Wednesday that it lost US$355 million on falling revenue in the first quarter, another sign of the crisis gripping the aircraft manufacturer as it faces increasing scrutiny over the safety of its planes and accusations of shoddy work from a growing number of whistleblowers.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Fair in Ontario, flurries in Labrador: Weather systems make for an erratic spring
It's no secret that spring can be a tumultuous time for Canadian weather, and as an unseasonably mild El Nino winter gives way to summer, there's bound to be a few swings in temperature that seem out of the ordinary. From Ontario to the Atlantic, though, this week is about to feel a little erratic.