A dear friend needs our help!

Yesterday afternoon (11/19/23) Dallin, a young, vibrant, smart, caring, loving 24 year old went into cardiac arrest. The doctors do not know exactly what caused his heart to stop. After several studies and consultation with cardiac intensivist, cardiologist, cardio-thoracic surgeon and heart failure specialist, the likely cause is viral myocarditis.

Amelia (his wife) heard him fall after he was feeling sick and Brian (his dad) started CPR when he found him unresponsive. Paramedics arrived fairly quickly taking over with administration of medications and a defibrillator. It took 5 shocks to re-establish a pulse and breathing. During this process he had a severe injury to his heart and aspirated stomach contents into his lungs as well as a left side pneumothorax (air leak in his lung). He has required several medications and a ventilator to keep him alive. He is in critical condition in the cardiac ICU.

He remains in a medically induced coma. At this point, the doctors do not know the extent of potential hypoxic brain injury (lack of oxygen to the brain), although they remain very optimistic.

The specialists expect him to be in critical condition for the next 7-10 days.

They have placed him on an ECMO which is a pump that takes a portion of his blood from the large vein entering his heart, removes carbon dioxide and replenishes oxygen and sends it back to the heart. This will help take some of the work off of his heart to allow it to heal.

The good news is that currently he is down to 2 of the 3 medications required to stabilize his blood pressure and they have been able to continue to reduce these medications. He is requiring less medication to maintain a normal blood pH balance. His lungs are responding and have shown signs that they are healing. The chest tube is working to stabilize his left pneumothorax. He has a great team of doctors, surgeons and nurses taking care of him.

Dallin and Amelia and their family have a very long road ahead and they need the love and support from their community. Dallin will be facing extensive medical bills as he continues to improve and all funds will assist in offsetting the cost of his hospital stay and his ongoing recovery.

Please consider donating to help Dallin, Amelia, and his loving family.

Here is a recent update from the last 72 hours. Dallin is doing very well. He was removed from ECMO the day before thanksgiving and on Thanksgiving he was taken off all sedatives. The day after thanksgiving he was donig well enough to be extubated (removal of intubation tube). He is able to communicate with his family and has been done some limited work with physical therapy. He currently remains in the ICU and will require an implantable cardiac defibrillator. He is also awaiting a cardiac MRI to further evaluate for underlying inflammation and scaring from the infection. He has past his swallow test and is able to eat solid foods at this point. He will likely require a another couple of days in the ICU before being moved to a progressive care unit. He continues to make a miraculous recovery!