A Virginia man ‘miraculously’ survived a life-threatening heart attack when he crashed his car right outside a cardiologist’s office, reports New York Post.64-year-old Jeff Geraci was driving home from a workout class last month when he suddenly stopped breathing and lost control of his car. He swerved across multiple lanes before hitting a sign and stopping in a parking lot, WTVR reported.“I sat in the car because something didn’t quite feel right. Sipped some coffee, and I was going to sit there and close my eyes for a few minutes. But instead, I decided to drive home,” Geraci said.By coincidence, the crash occurred near the office of Dr Deepak Talreja, chief of cardiology for Sentara Health. Talreja rushed to the scene while on the phone with 911.“When I got to your car, what I saw was the windshield was shattered and your airbags were deployed, and it was hard to see you because you were surrounded by airbags and a shattered windshield,” the doctor told Geraci.Talreja quickly assessed Geraci and realised he was in critical condition. “You weren’t breathing, and you didn’t have a pulse — SCD, sudden cardiac death. And what that means is the heart just isn’t doing the job, and so it’s a form of death,” he said. “But fortunately, we got things restarted very quickly, and so God was watching out.”Geraci’s heart attack had blocked 95% of his lower anterior descending artery and 90% of the upper part. Talreja said that if medical help had not arrived within eight minutes, Geraci likely could not have been revived.“The confusion when I woke up with things in my arm and people running around, it was like a dream, muddled dream, and foggy,” Geraci recalled. “I asked the nurse what happened, and he said, ‘You have a heart attack. You crashed your car.’”Despite a family history of heart disease, Geraci had believed his active lifestyle would protect him. “My father had two heart attacks. My mother died of a heart attack… one sister has heart issues. I’ve been an athlete since I was 14 years old. I work out all the time. I ran marathons, [I thought] it’s not going to happen to me.”Now back at work, Geraci is focusing on improving his diet. “It’s such a testimony of God’s greatness, of all the things that had to happen to keep me alive. I’m blessed. It’s a miracle. God was there, and thank God Dr Talreja was there.”
