Support Garrett Schaal's Heart Recovery Journey

As some of you may know, my brother and best friend, Garrett Schaal, experienced a sudden cardiac event of a massive heart attack. This past Monday, around 4 am, Garrett woke with a gasp of breath and became unresponsive. His amazing fiancée, Hanna, proceeded to perform CPR while waiting for EMS to arrive. Between Hanna and the EMS arriving quickly on the scene, this ultimately saved his life. After being resuscitated on scene, he was transported to McLaren Hospital in Bay City, where they worked to stabilize him for over 2 hours.

Garrett has been in the ICU since this occurred. These first 24-48 hours have been quite the roller coaster. He was on a ventilator until he was recently able to breathe on his own. He became ill with pneumonia and is currently taking antibiotics for that. He has also been undergoing multiple scans, imaging, and labs. They were worried about brain function, but this seems very positive at his current state. He has been moving and responding to commands, as well as talking. Most of his organs underwent extreme stress during this cardiac event, so his kidneys and liver are not functioning properly, and he has undergone dialysis and will continue to do so until they see improvement. Additionaly, he had blood in his stomach which has also improved with none in the last 18/24 hours. His pulse and blood pressure continue to be high, but they are consistently monitoring it.

As long as the other doctors approve, he will receive a cardiac catheter on May 2nd to see if there are any blockages in his heart. They can then proceed with stents, an aortic balloon pump, or a defibrillator depending on what they find out. There is a constant team of about 3-5 different physicians working to identify what happened and develop a treatment plan.

This will be a long road of recovery, and we assume he will need continuous treatment and different therapies due to how long this cardiac event occurred. He will not be able to drive and will be out of work for some time. His fiancée, Hanna, has also had to miss multiple days of work to be with him, and we assume she will need to assist in his care post-hospital as well.

Garrett is one of the most loving men I know. To know him is to love him. We are so happy he is having continued improvement. Less than 5% of people survive an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. They will now be facing a challenging time between the many lost wages, regular monthly bills, dozens of rehab appointments, and the mounting medical bills. We are asking for help and turning to the community of his incredible friends and family.

Any support will help him weather the storm, and I and everyone close to him appreciate it and are thankful to have such incredible people in our lives.

With Love,

Amanda & Family.