On Sunday, June 30th, 2024, we received a phone call no loved one wants to receive. My Dad, John, suffered from a heart attack in the evening time in an effort to get to the ER. The ambulance was on the way while my stepmother, Yun, was trying to perform CPR on my dad while my 7-year-old brother, Jefferson, was crying and watching my Dad fight for his life. The ambulance arrived and said my dad's heart had stopped and proceeded to perform CPR on my dad 7 more times which equaled out to 14 minutes of good quality CPR. With help from an injection, he was brought back but in very critical need to get to the hospital.

Due to the fact that my dad was unconscious for more than 15 min, he suffered extreme brain damage due to his heart stopping and not receiving enough oxygen to the brain. He had been hooked up to a ventilator and sedated while the care team came up with a plan of care. In efforts to stimulate his brain, my dad went through a 24-hour process where they cooled his body to 31° to try to get some stimulation in his brain and then after 12 hours of that, they warmed his body back to normal temperature for an additional 12 hours while weaning him off sedation. The doctors said that we need to do a brain scan to determine how much damage was done and what parts of the brain are salvaged.

Today, July 3rd, we received the worst news after doctors reviewed his brain scan. My dad had what was called Prolonged Downtime, meaning while his heart stopped, the brain was taking significant damage every minute that went by. Because of this, my dad’s Cortex (the central hub for a lot of the motor skills you perform daily) of the brain is no longer intact. He has no awareness of where he is. He cannot recognize us. He can’t understand our words. He has no pain reflexes. He can’t move his extremities. My dad is gone.

My family is heartbroken and grieving so heavily during this time. We are saying goodbye to him on Friday as we prepare to take him off the ventilator once his Son, Patrick, travels from Germany to say our final goodbyes. Then, we plan to take him to a comfort care facility where we let him pass on peacefully surrounded by family.

As anyone could imagine, grieving alone during this time is hard to do when you are faced with the financial burden of what to do after a loved one leaves us. We are not the type of family to ask for help such as this but know that a simple act of kindness can stretch so far to help others in need. We love our Dad and want to lay him to rest, we just need a little help doing that. We ask for help with memorial arrangements and cremation costs. We, as a family appreciate anything anyone can offer to help us in this time of healing and devastation.