Thankful People: Ray Doyle's miracle

Ray Doyle will never eat another Caesar salad.

The 63-year-old accountant struggled July 21 with a rough bout of food poisoning. He couldn't keep anything down. Ray, a bear of a man, lost 15 pounds in seven hours.

Rachel Massey, his daughter and a nurse at Saint Francis Medical Center, communicated with her mother, Sandra Doyle, throughout the day and into the evening, providing guidance on how best to help her father. She told her mother that if things kept getting worse, he would need to go to the emergency room.

Ray's condition continued to detoriate. Sandra called 911 around 10 p.m. While on the phone with the dispatcher, she put away the couple's protective dog, making sure paramedics would not be hounded by the family's canine friend. When she went back upstairs to where Ray lay, she witnessed something she never wanted to experience: "I know what 'the death rattle' is now."

Ray had gone into cardiac arrest. His eyes had glazed over, and he wasn't responding. His wife turned him over on his side so he wouldn't choke on any vomit -- he'd been throwing up constantly since the afternoon.

Ray in the hospital three days after being rushed to the emergency room. The first day he was able to get up and move around.

"Don't you die on me," Sandra said as she sat with her husband. Their 45th anniversary was just a few months away.

Ray was in ventricle fibrilation, an irregular heart rhythm that results in the heart not being able to pump blood to the rest of the body. He would be hooked up to a Lucas machine -- a device that performs CPR.

Rachel got the call from her mother at 10:26 p.m. and rushed over to her father's house. She had spent time working in a cardiac care unit, and when she arrived on the scene, she knew her father was in dire straights.

"The chances of survival were slim at this point," she said.

Ray was rushed via ambulance to Southeast Hospital. A first responder stayed with the family. He wasn't leaving until they regained a pulse, he said.

Ray and Sandra Doyle in Ray's hospital bed six days after he was rushed to the hospital.

A doctor came out and explained the situation, Rachel knew what was happening at that moment, but she said her mother didn't and she asked the doctor to re-explain.

"She (the doctor) was asking us to stop moving forward with care," she said, terrified that even if her father regained a pulse, he would likely be brain-dead from the lack of oxygen.

Sandra, rather emphatically, told the doctor she wasn't ready to give up.

The doctor went back for one more pulse check. This time there was one.

There were still many unknowns that wouldn't be answered for another 24 hours. Would Ray still have brain function? Would he ever be the same as he was before?

In the next hours, he woke up a few times, a look of concern in his eyes, but he still had a tube down his throat and wasn't able to speak. His family would have to wait another day to have the chance to hear from him.

The next day when they pulled the tube out, Ray looked at his daughter and said "What the (expletive)?"

Rachel burst into tears while laughing. Dad was back.

Ray would suffer from short-term memory loss for a short time after he woke up. He kept asking everyone what had happened and then wouldn't believe him when they told him, he said with a chuckle.

Just nine days after he was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance and had no pulse for more than 50 minutes, Ray walked out of the hospital. Rachel said the odds of him recovering the way he did were "one in a million."

A normal ejection fraction for a healthy heart is around 55% to 70%. When Ray came out of the hospital, his heart had an ejection fraction of a little less than 19%. In his latest checkup, it was up near 50%, well more than expected.

Ray and Rachel credit Sandra with his faster-than-expected recovery process. Because of dietary restrictions, Sandra makes the majority of their meals from scratch. She also ensures her husband is up and moving around even on off days from cardiac rehab.

Ray has returned to a somewhat normal life. He's in the midst of a kitchen remodel and has begun setting up his office, returning to in-person work this month.

The accountant has developed a sense of humor about the situation, regularly telling people "he's the healthiest dead man you'll see."

He missed a lot of golf season and is looking forward to returning to the course next year.

"Every day since July 21 has been an extra day," he said.

As the family looks back on their nightmare scenario, many things aligned in their favor. Everything that had to go right along the way. Sandra called 911 at the right time. Paramedics showed up just as Ray coded. Municipal officials had purchased a Lucas machine, allowing Ray to have constant CPR performed on him. The doctors performed one final pulse check. Ray overcame early nuerological issues. They gave credit to one thing above it all. God.

"God's gonna intervene," Sandra said as the paramedics first arrived at her house.

"God must have a cause for him still, there's something he needs to do still in this life," Rachel added.

Ray clearly sees a purpose.

"God's given me this extra time."