Chad Gracey saves friend's life after cardiac arrest Options

[Badman]

Live drummer saves friend's life after cardiac arrest during hike

Reported by Catherine Rose
York Daily Record – Story behind paywall, but text pasted below. Direct link to story here.

Chad Gracey garnered a measure of fame as the rock band Live's drummer based on his sense of rhythm.

That skill came in handy when a friend, George Taylor, suffered a heart attack while hiking. Unbeknownst to either man, Taylor's arteries were 95% blocked. When he collapsed, Gracey sprang into action, administering CPR.

Taylor, then 67, was hiking at Rocky Ridge Park in September 2023 with his friend Chad Gracey, just as they had many times before. Once an Ironman athlete, Taylor had since fallen into bad health. Hitting the trails felt like a step in the right direction.

"And obviously, I didn't get very far on the hiking," Taylor recounted in an interview with the York Daily Record.

Gracey, then 52, remembers that he and his business partner-turned-friend had finished the 3-mile hike and were heading back to the parking lot.

"He said, 'I don't feel good,' and he just collapsed, and I tried to help him down. But his ankle got caught underneath him," Gracey said in a phone interview. "I didn't know at the time that he broke it, but obviously I could tell he was in some kind of crazy distress."

Thinking it was a seizure, Gracey called 911. He saw Taylor foaming at the mouth, unconscious and struggling to breathe.

That's when the dispatcher told him his friend was probably in cardiac arrest and walked him through CPR.

Gracey had taken CPR classes years earlier, mostly when his kids were young, but he never had to do it on a real person until then. He was instructed to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and chest compressions.

The efforts exhausted even Gracey, who described always having been in good health. He went through about three rounds over 15 minutes, after which he had to switch to compressions only.
"I just couldn't do it anymore. I was gagging and practically throwing up," Gracey recalled, detailing how he tried to stay calm and do what he could to help his friend.

Other than the foam that kept coming out of Taylor's mouth — and that Gracey had to keep wiping away — his body wasn’t doing much. Emergency crews arrived, and Gracey said he went to rest on a log roughly 20 feet away.

"Everyone started to go, 'Ouch! Ouch!' You know, everyone was making these noises. I was like, what the hell's going on?" Gracey recounted.

As luck would have it, a yellowjacket nest that camouflaged into the trail was disturbed amid the chaos of the rescue. Two of the original four people in the EMS crew ended up going into anaphylaxis shock, Taylor said.

"I was dead meat. They didn't care about me," he said of the bees. He and Gracey never got stung.

Gracey remembers that one cop managed to grab Taylor and drag him out of the trail while the yellowjackets wreaked havoc.

"I was like, this is frigging nuts," Gracey said.

Honestly, he didn't think Taylor was going to make it. He said he called Taylor's ex-wife so she could let their kids know what was happening with their father as he walked back to his car.
Traffic started to back up because the slew of emergency vehicles was blocking the main thoroughfare at Rocky Ridge Park. The man in the car in front of Gracey got out and told him the whole situation was bad news.

"He's like, 'Yeah, that guy's dead,'" Gracey said. "And I'm like, 'What do you mean he's dead?' and he said that when transportation is taking that long, it's usually because the person is dead."
"I was like, 'Oh my God, well, that's my friend. I just gave him CPR," Gracey continued.
He rushed over to a cop, who reassured him that EMS had found a pulse on Taylor and that they were on their way to WellSpan York Hospital.

"Thank God," Gracey remembers saying.

He said he later learned things took so long because the original crew was taken out by the yellowjacket attacks. Ironically, another ambulance had to be called in for the people who came in on the first one.

Taylor still doesn't remember the first five days after the medical emergency. What he knows has been pieced together by accounts of friends and those who were attending to him medically.
"Turns out I had a lot of things wrong with me," Taylor said.

As he later learned, Taylor's arteries were 95% blocked. Eventually, he was fitted with a pacemaker to keep his heart beating in proper rhythm today.

After the incident, a park ranger took Taylor back to the exact spot where he collapsed.
Gracey said he hasn’t been back there since the incident, and he doesn’t see himself as a hero.
”I guess in a way you'd say it was heroic,” Gracey said. “I would hope that anybody would do the same thing in that situation.”

Taylor sees it more simply: He died on that trail.

And because someone didn’t stop pushing on his chest, he got another chance. Then, very deliberately, he chose to live.

[dangum]

https://rumble.com/v40gxv1-the-gracious-two...e-show-011.html

The Gracious Two speak to George Taylor about a heart attack he suffered while hiking with Chad Gracey and nearly died had Chad not performed CPR for 15 minutes until EMTs arrived. George was hospitalized for over two weeks and required open heart surgery, now relying on medications and lifestyle changes to manage his health.

Obesity strongly correlates to cardiac issues, as George observed most cardiac patients being older and overweight. Diet and exercise are emphasized as personal responsibilities for health, with concerns around Alzheimer's as a limiting factor for aging. Medications cannot substitute for lifestyle changes in risk reduction.

Live often shut down talk shows by energizing audiences. Chad preferred their 1994 Woodstock performance for its spirit. Stories from Letterman to Dennis Miller varied in host engagement before and after performances. Their musical magic transcends personal matters.

Links:
http://www.fansoflive.com/forums/index.php...ndpost&p=145180
http://www.fansoflive.com/forums/index.php...ndpost&p=144925

[Merica]

Well done Gracey. Mad to have that going on and then bloody wasps start having a go.

[Badman]

This event could inspire a badass song in their younger years. I really hope for something good from either camp in the near future, it's been too freakin' long