OAKLEAF – Just like he was a month ago, Luis Vargas was waiting at the front door Wednesday morning when Jim Markert arrived at the front door of the Baptist and Wolfson Oakleaf Emergency Room.

This time, however, Markert was alive.

Markert and his wife, Timmi, visited the emergency room where a security guard working the midnight shift played a key role in saving Markert’s life by starting CPR in the parking lot near the front door. Vargas quickly was joined by nurses and doctors and together they revived the patient from a heart attack that few survive.

“We all cried,” Timmi said when meeting Vargas again.

The 58-year-old man from Middleburg wasn’t breathing when his wife stopped their pick-up truck at the front door. Jim suffered left arterial descending heart attack – commonly known as the widowmaker – during the middle of the night. Like many men, however, he waited for two hours before asking for help.

“I didn’t feel right. I Googled the symptoms and it said heart attack,” Jim said. “I told my wife I’m not going to work today. You need to take me to the emergency room. I knew I was having a heart attack.”

During the frantic ride, Jim stopped breathing.

“He wasn’t right,” Timmi said of the seven-mile sprint to the emergency department. “He stopped talking to me. He was making strange sounds and turning blue. All of a sudden, he wasn’t responding to me. By the time I got to Oakleaf Parkway, he expelled his last breath. By then, I was driving 90 mph. I was punching him, yelling at him not to leave me.”

When Timmi ran into the emergency room to get help, Vargas already was trying to pull Merkert from the passenger seat to the sidewalk and he started CPR compressions.

“All of the sudden, a woman runs in frantically, yelling for help, saying her husband is dying,” Vargas said. “I ran out and saw a man slumped over motionless. I knew I had to get him out.”

And while the Markerts were grateful to finally meet Vargas in a less-frantic atmosphere, Vargas continued to deflect most of the credit to the medical staff at the Oakleaf ER.

The Oakleaf medical team – emergency nurses Jill Jones, Yelitza Borges-Figueroa and Joyce Nieves, along with Suzie Baxter, a respiratory therapist, and emergency physician Joseph King, MD, ran out to help lift Markert onto a stretcher. Borges-Figueroa continued chest compressions while Markert was rushed into an exam room.

“The nurse actually had to get on top of my husband on the stretcher to continue CPR while he was being wheeled into the exam room,” Timmi said.

The medical team worked to stabilize Markert, who was experiencing “ventricular fibrillation,” a condition in which the chambers of the heart quiver rather than pump blood.

“Jim was essentially dead,” said Dr. King. “We had to shock his heart several times to restore a normal rhythm.”

Since every second counted, the improbable recovery started with Vargas’ quick reaction.

“I thanked him profusely for being at the right place at the right time,” Jim said. “He sure stepped up. On top of his sense of urgency for the situation, he was careful how he took me out of the truck. I was out. I can’t thank him enough.”

“The quick response – from the security guard’s initial chest compressions to the amazing work of the entire medical team – saved this man’s life,” said cardiologist David Hassel, MD, said.

Markert was without a pulse for several minutes. Dr. Russell Stapleton, a cardiologist for Baptist Health, said Jim suffered 99% blockage of his left anterior descending artery.

“Only about one in a thousand people survive this,” Dr. Hassel said.

Markert said he’s still sore and suffers from fatigue.

“The one thing I’ve learned is, I understand my job isn’t done here yet,” Jim said. “God has a plan for me.”

“Between here and there, he died,” Timmi said. “Now he’s up and walking.”

Which was a much better way to go through the front doors of the Oakleaf ER than a month ago.