Justin Arnold is a best friend of one of our BYU 68th Ward members, Jared Rader. While walking across campus with Jared and another friend a couple of weeks ago, Justin suffered a massive heart attack, stopped breathing for 15 minutes, and needed four defibrilator shocks to get his heart started. Here's his remarkable story (from the
ABC4 website):
PROVO, Utah (ABC 4 News) - People die all the time, but rarely does someone die and live to tell about it. Well, that's exactly what happened to BYU freshman and Men's Chorus member Justin Arnold.
February 15th Justin and his friends were walking home from a friend's apartment late one evening when Justin clutched his chest and collapsed. His friends called 9-1-1. EMTs arrived, realized Justin wasn't breathing and began CPR. But that simply wasn't working.
They eventually had to use a defibrillator four times to bring Justin back. But by the time his heart started beating again Justin's brain had been without oxygen for 15 minutes.
Doctors told Justin's parents that, if he did survive, he would like suffer from mental retardation and would certainly never sing in the choir again.
Fast forward two weeks to February 28th. Justin is back in school and he is rehearsing for the choir's upcoming concerts. He is taking heavy medication and has a fancy defibrillator installed in his chest cavity. But, other than that, he's back to normal. "This whole thing," he says. "Is a miracle."
(On the
ABC4 website, click on the video link to the right of the story to see and hear more of the story).
