Heart to heart: How a Sioux Falls couple, a TEDx Talk and the right timing saved a life

This is a story of “ifs.”

If Juli Hamilton hadn’t invited her husband to attend the April 28 TEDxSiouxFalls event, and if Chris Hamilton hadn’t been willing to go.

If Mike Broderick hadn’t wanted to share his story of a life-threatening “electrical problem” as one of the TEDxSiouxFalls speakers.

If co-worker Jeff Hauge, paramedics Josh DeVaney and Taylor Freeman and a 911 operator named Aimee hadn’t come together to offer CPR and the every-second-counts care that Broderick needed to save his life.

Then Chris Hamilton wouldn’t have survived the “plumbing problem” that threatened to stop his heart from beating the very day he went to the event. Because he wouldn’t have realized the seriousness of the symptoms that started during Broderick’s TEDxSiouxFalls talk. He would have tried to just sleep away the discomfort. And it likely would have been his final night’s rest.

Today, the Hamiltons are barely 10 days away from the life-altering event that ended up with Chris’ admittance to Avera Heart Hospital. They — because this will be very much a team effort — are learning to deal with the medications and rehabilitation that now are part of their daily life.

Broderick and the Hamiltons now are linked by a chain that began when, during the TEDxSiouxFalls intermission, Chris Hamilton approached Broderick and briefly spoke to him. “I’m glad you’re here,” he told the speaker.

“I remember a person coming up to me and shaking my hand and saying, thanks for your talk, I’m so glad you’re here,” Broderick said. The encounter was brief. He was setting up mannequins for people to experience hands-only CPR.

Why did Chris Hamilton feel compelled to walk up to Broderick?

“His story was very emotionally compelling,” he said. “It just about brought a tear to my eyes, listening to the 911 call at the beginning. I could hear stress and drama in the phone call, knowing he was the guy they were giving compressions to.”

Chris and Juli Hamilton paused for a minute to take a photo of themselves holding a big red X signifying their presence at the TEDxSiouxFalls event. Broderick had others to talk with, including Hauge, who had performed the compressions.

Then, another person approached him. This time, it was the operator who had taken the 911 call and talked Hauge through the CPR. Aimee, who asked that her last name not be used in this story, said later that 911 operators almost never know the outcome of the calls they take.

She remembered this call, however, because it was the first medical call she had taken on that shift — and it was her birthday.

“I was bummed about it,” Aimee said. “To hear all these years later he survived and is doing well is really wonderful.”

Aimee’s birthday is now his second birthday, Broderick said. Chris Hamilton can join them in that birthday celebration.

Juli Hamilton suggested attending this year’s TEDx, the third in Sioux Falls. Now a sign language interpreter, as an undergraduate she was required to share research analysis in the form of TED Talks. Chris Hamilton, who works in IT at Avera Health and also is a musician, is a fan too.

The couple both have undergone gastric vertical sleeve surgery for weight loss. Since then, they have experienced what is called “dumping syndrome.” When they consume too much of something sweet, they feel clammy and sweaty, almost like having the flu.

Chris Hamilton had a glass of wine before the presentations began. Even though it wasn’t a sweet wine, he attributed beginning to feel poorly to that.

To be honest, he didn’t expect Broderick’s talk would be that enthralling because as a healthy, 50-year-old man, heart issues didn’t concern him.

But from its beginning, with the playing of the 911 call made on Broderick’s behalf and then seeing the man walk on stage, he was caught up in it. Even through discomfort. “About two to three minutes in, I started to feel my heart attack,” Chris Hamilton said. “I started to feel an intense pain.”

Unwilling to disrupt others by getting up from his seat and leaving the hall, he instead practiced a deep breathing exercise. The pain tapered, and he refocused on Broderick’s speech.

Broderick was employed at Results Radio on May 18, 2017, when he suffered cardiac arrest. He was sitting at his desk. A Roman Catholic, Broderick says a special prayer at 3 p.m. every day. It was 19 minutes later when his heart stopped. He remembers wanting to put his head on his desk, but an inner voice told him to stand up. He tried and crashed to the floor. That drew his co-workers to him.

What Broderick had experienced, he said, is an “electrical problem.” The heart becomes confused and stops beating, and a person collapses from lack of oxygen.

“If they don’t get CPR and ultimately the use of an AED, they’ll never come back,” Broderick said. “Technically, you’re dead at that point because your heart is not beating.”

At the time, the Results Radio office didn’t have an AED, or automated external defibrillator, a medical device used to restore the heart’s rhythm. “It did before I left,” said Broderick, now the community outreach officer with the Ronald McDonald House Charities for South Dakota. Instead, with Aimee on the phone, Hauge began CPR.

Hauge estimates he learned CPR about 25 years ago. He remembers hearing radio public service announcements when CPR changed to a hands-only procedure, no longer involving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. At TEDxSiouxFalls, he heard the 911 call again.

“It got to me,” Hauge said. “It was like I was right there again.”

In six minutes and 30 seconds, two paramedics from what is now PatientCare EMS Solutions came through the door. They stabilized Broderick and rushed him to the hospital. Physicians there could not estimate when the unconscious man would wake up or whether he would suffer long-term aftereffects from any lack of oxygen.

He did not, but Broderick now has a subcutaneous internal cardiac defibrillator installed in his chest. It monitors his heart; if he ever has another cardiac arrest, the device will shock his heart back into rhythm. So far, he has not needed it.

In his TEDxSiouxFalls talk, Broderick included a slide on the difference between a cardiac arrest’s “electrical” problem and the “plumbing” problem of a heart attack.

“In a heart attack, the heart is still beating, trying to pump blood in the body,” Broderick said. “Typically, you’re able to talk. You don’t need CPR or an AED.”

Chris and Juli Hamilton remember that slide. They remember the statistics Broderick shared: Cardiac arrests kill more people every year than breast cancer, colon cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer, HIV, pneumonia, auto accidents and firearms combined. Someone experiences cardiac arrest every 90 seconds; 90 percent will not survive.

The Hamiltons took those facts home with them. They had arrived in separate vehicles; when they got home, they parked the cars and prepared for bed. It had been a long day for them both. Juli fell asleep quickly. Chris, bothered by what seemed to be his usual heartburn, took apple cider vinegar.

About midnight, the discomfort that Chris had rated a seven during the TEDxSiouxFalls event increased to an eight, maybe eight and a half. He tried Wim Hof breathing exercises in the living room. He tried yoga, thinking expanding his chest might help. Finally, with the words Broderick had shared a few hours earlier still vivid, he gave in and tapped his sleeping wife on the shoulder.

Five minutes later, they were in the emergency room on Marion Road. Tests to determine what was happening began immediately, but there was skepticism.

“If I had a couple of dollars for every doctor or nurse who said ‘you’re not having a heart attack,’ I could have paid off his surgery or my student loans,” Juli Hamilton said.

That doesn’t mean the care they received wasn’t excellent, she said. They had been ushered into a room, and four people surrounded Chris before he had time to take off his shirt. It was just that healthy 50-year-old Chris, who follows a pescaterian diet, wasn’t a candidate for a heart attack.

Except, tests proved that’s exactly what he was having. By 8 a.m. April 29. he had been transferred to the Avera Heart Hospital. Surgery revealed Chris needed stents in two arteries, blocked 99 percent and 94 percent.

Chris has another week off from work to recuperate and cardiac rehabilitation ahead of him. Last Thursday, he took an eight-minute walk while his heart rate and blood pressure were monitored. The goal is to increase the length and intensity. In another month, he will repeat the echocardiogram to measure his heart’s recovery.

The Hamiltons have been a couple since 2011 and celebrated their fourth wedding anniversary May 4. Juli calls Chris a “hippie Christian” and labels herself as an atheist/agnostic. While nothing specifically matches Broderick’s 3 p.m. experience, she concedes, “It’s hard to deny the universe is working in mysterious ways.”

Three things saved his life, Chris said. One was living only five minutes from a hospital. The second is a loving wife who didn’t question his request to be taken to that hospital. The third is Broderick’s TEDxSiouxFalls talk.

“That put the idea of maybe having a heart issue in my head; otherwise I probably would have been stubborn and taken a Benadryl,” Chris said.

Broderick, who ended his talk with a plea for employers to purchase AEDs and provide CPR training, became teary when he heard what had happened to the man who approached him so briefly April 28. That’s why he wanted to get the message out, the Tea man said. He is grateful for every new day and shares his story whenever he can.

Broderick wants to meet the Hamiltons, and he knows his first words will echo what Chris said to him the night of the TEDxSiouxFalls talk.

“I’m so glad you’re here.”

About TEDxSiouxFalls

Thadeus Giedd, organizer of TEDxSiouxFalls, said it will be three to six weeks before the most recent talks go online on YouTube. To receive an alert announcing their posting, subscribe to the emailer at tedxsiouxfalls.com.