FAIRWAY, Kan. — It was a normal October day when Jon Cook, global CEO of VMLY&R, headed out for his normal 3-5 mile run.
After years of following the same route multiple times a week, he was unaware this instance would end in a fight for his life.
"I'd say [it] was one of the most emotional, confusing, scary times in my entire life," Cook said.
The 52-year-old recalls the day as if it was any other. Looking back, he doesn't recall any red flags or symptoms, noting all he felt was a little tired.
"I felt something [I] hadn't felt before," Cook said. "My whole shoulders and head got really hot, top half of my body locked up a little bit and I thought, 'This is strange.' I went down to one knee, actually went to hands on the knees, caught my breath, couldn't catch my breath."
The next thing he knew, he was out cold.
Cook awoke to strangers standing over him before an ambulance transported him to the hospital.
"One of them was a woman that said, 'You don't know me, but we've been making out for the last 2 1/2 minutes,'" Cook said. "She was one of the first people to start giving me CPR."
Cook had suffered cardiac arrest. Doctors say nine out of 10 people don't survive, but Cook is in 10%.
Several bystanders and walkers stopped to help when they saw him go down, but three doctors from the University of Kansas Health System also drove by at the same exact time, stopping to help.
One of the doctors was cardiologist Dr. Prakash Acharya.
"I came to find out later that he [Acharya] was driving that route two hours earlier than he normally does that night," Cook said. "The fact that he drove up at that — not just that hour, not just that minute, but the fact he drove up that second made all the difference in my life."
When he arrived at the hospital, Cook was taken into the care of Dr. Rhea Pimentel, a cardiac electrophysiologic with the University of Kansas Health System
"My initial reaction is that was one lucky dude," Pimentel said. "His heart rhythm went so fast that he couldn’t get blood to his head so he passed out."
Cook was diagnosed with atrial flutter.
"I could tell the legend of what happened had grown a little bit because you'd go down to the anesthesia department, somebody said, 'Oh, you're that guy. You're a miracle,'" Cook said.
Pimentel explains atrial flutter is not rare but the condition causing an arrest, like what happened with Cook, is.
"I think his heart rate was in the 200s when all of this, kind of in and around the time frame, happened," Pimentel said. "Atrial flutter keeps the heart rate from recovering to a normal rhythm, especially after a run."
After Cook had a defibrillator put in, he was back to running his same route not even two weeks later, with Pimentel's permission, of course.
"She (Pimentel) said, ‘Let me sum this up for you, Jon: go forward and live your life young man, you’re fine,'" Cook said. "Every time I go around that curve, I think about exactly what happened, but I kinda have a smile when I do it because it’s kinda like I beat something."
Cook hasn't been able to find the initial bystanders who stopped to help him, but he's utterly grateful, noting it's one thing to know CPR but another to jump in and perform it.
"If one of four or five things hadn't happened perfectly for me, then I wouldn't be here and that does wake me up in the night still," Cook said. "The thing that puts me back to sleep is how good of care I got and how immediate the care was on the spot, but also the care I got for the way that my life will go forward."
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