My name is Sarah Erhardt and I am raising funds for my dad, Micheal "Mick" Turpin, and grandmother, Cheryl Turpin-Gettel.

For those of you who know my dad, know that he is an incredibly hard worker and is always willing to help someone. Whether that's going to pull them out of the mud in the middle of the night, fix something of theirs, or literally drive 4hrs+ to drop something off or visit and turn right back around to go home. He is also someone who will give the shirt off his back if someone told them they were in need, or buy something of theirs so they have money to keep their lights on. My dad is also the person who lives with and cares for his mother, Cheryl, as well as assists with bills, groceries, yard work, you name it. He currently works as a dump truck driver for Gordon Construction in Mahnomen, MN. Their season recently came to an end for the year, but it is definitely something that our dad really enjoys doing!

On November 10th, he had a near fainting spell in their house and luckily my sister, Kellie, saw it and knew right away something was wrong. Of course, if you know Mick, his response is always "I'm fine." but in this case he wasn't. We all convinced him to go to the ER that morning, where he received some medicine and testing. We found out that he had some chest pains a few days prior, but never really said anything. We were told that he had a heart attack and then he was sent via ambulance to Sanford Fargo. The next morning he was brought to have an angiogram where they found a 100% blockage in one of his arteries and placed a stent with intentions to fix another artery when he was a bit stronger. That evening he was doing well, but during the early morning hours of November 12th, he had an arrhythmia called ventricular tachycardia (v-tach) with a heart rate over 200. This caused him to have to be defibrillated and brought back to have another angiogram where they adjusted the first stent and placed a second for a 70% blockage. After all of this, he looked 1000x better. He had more energy and was of course getting antsy in the hospital, wanting to go home. He was discharged on November 14th, but the requirement was that he had to leave with a Life Vest (portable defibrillator).

The afternoon of November 15th, he was in their kitchen when he blacked out and fell, hitting his head on the stove and was shocked by his vest. Once he came to and was sitting up, he was shocked again. Cheryl called an ambulance and he was brought back to the ER, and then sent to Sanford Fargo via ambulance again. On the way there, he was shocked two more times. They were able to get him stabilized once in Fargo, but during the early hours of the 16th, he went into v-tach again. At this point, the hospital thought it was best if they intubated him, put him on a ventilator, and sedated him to try to let his heart rest and perform a 3rd angiogram. Not long after, he went into v-tach one more time before getting the recommendation to be sent to Abbott Northwest in Minneapolis via helicopter.

We were fortunately able to be at the hospital when he arrived in Minneapolis. Over the next few days, he underwent various procedures to place catheters, an implanted defibrillator and pace maker, and another angiogram. He was stable and his team of doctors had plans to remove his breathing tube and ventilator, and to wake him up. The morning of the 19th when they were getting ready to reduce sedation, he went into a v-tach multiple times where he was defibrillated and had to receive 10-15 minutes of CPR. Not long after this, he went into v-tach again, and continued throughout the day to the point where one of his cardiologists was ready to call it and try to get him his last rights. Thankfully, while the cardiologist was talking to our brother, Zach, the doctor's team continued working on him and he finally came out of the v-tach storm he was having. He was defibrillated 80 times that day. They decided to put him in a medically induced coma to allow his heart and body to rest, as well as connect him to an ecmo machine to circulate and oxygenate his blood for him and a dialysis machine due to the amount of contrast and medications that have been in his body. He was also connected to an EEG machine to ensure his brain activity was not debilitated due to all that he had gone through.

On November 20th, they started to reduce some of his medications to include the paralytic. This morning, November 21st, they began reducing his sedative to work on waking him up. This evening, his sedative drip was completely off and he had a neurological response! He was responding to nurse's commands like "squeeze my hand" and "are you in pain?", to which he responded "no" by shaking his head. He is still intubated and partially sedated to keep his heart rate down and his body calm for recovery.

We don't know what is going to happen next, or how long he is going to be in the hospital, but what we do know is that he will also have a long road of recovery ahead of him. Bottom line is that he is a FIGHTER! He is definitely not ready to punch out yet.

With all of that being said, due to the lengthy hospital stay and future recovery, we know that he and our grandma will need some assistance financially. We are hoping that anything that gets sent our way will help both of them while we navigate what's to come.

Neither of them know that we are doing this and are both incredibly prideful, so please don't tell them! We want to be able to surprise them by Christmas :)