MANSFIELD — Tim Campbell’s Mansfield moving business, Dearman Moving and Storage, is always busy, and with that busyness comes stress.
On March 2, 2012, another full day was ahead. Pallets of Girl Scout cookies began filling the warehouse and an intense pain in his chest set in.
“I decided to push through it,” Campbell says. “That’s when I collapsed.”
Campbell dropped unconscious on the floor with what seemed to be a heart attack. He was only 45. He had ignored the pain for a while.
“Shortness of breath, cold sweats, heartburn … I kept it quiet, as guys do,” admits Campbell, “but finally I told my wife and we went to our primary care doctor in November. He scheduled a stress test for me in January.”
But on New Year’s Eve, Campbell lost consciousness at a friend’s home and fell down the stairs. His wife rushed him to a hospital emergency department in Galion. When tests did not detect a heart attack, Campbell was released and instructed to keep his stress test appointment.
He passed his stress test, and wore a heart monitor for 30 days without issue. An ultrasound of Campbell’s liver and gallbladder also showed no cause for the pain. Bewilderment turned to frustration and, when the symptoms returned that March morning, he did his best to ignore them until he collapsed.
Fortunately for Campbell, a woman visiting the warehouse that day was a CPR-trained ski patrol member from nearby Snow Trails ski resort. She and another woman performed chest compressions until emergency services arrived.
Campbell was experiencing ventricular fibrillation, a change in the rhythm of his heart. Instead of pumping normally, the lower chambers of the heart begin trembling. Blood stops flowing, causing sudden cardiac arrest. The effect is immediate and extremely serious. Survival rates for ventricular fibrillation are low and drop dramatically by the minute.
The ambulance rushed Campbell to OhioHealth Mansfield Hospital, where interventional cardiologist Dr. Gregory M. Eaton and his team were waiting at the ready in the catheterization lab.
“Tim’s only chance of surviving his heart attack was here in our onsite cath lab and ICU,” says Dr. Eaton.
Campbell had 95-percent blockage in one of the arteries in his heart. Dr. Eaton and his team implanted cardiac stents.
“We opened the culprit artery, and then transitioned Tim to the care of our skilled nursing staff in the intensive care unit,” says Dr. Eaton. “This level of care simply doesn’t exist at any other facility in our area. It’s the reason Tim is home with his family today.”
“I was treated so well,” Campbell says of his experience at Mansfield Hospital. “My daughter is a nurse in Columbus and when she heard about my condition she thought I should go to Cleveland, but that was before she got up here and saw the great care I was getting.
“My wife really valued the doctors. They did such a good job of explaining things. I had two stents put in and I walked out of the hospital five days later. When I returned in two years to have a stent repaired, the staff remembered me. They are all so encouraging and positive. I wouldn’t go anywhere else.”
“At OhioHealth, we’ve developed a model of care that places the patient at the center of all we do,” Dr. Eaton explains. “From the physicians who practice here, to the processes they have created, the facilities, the advanced technology … it makes such a difference. In simple terms, it’s like comparing college football to a local high school team, in every way imaginable.”
Today, Campbell takes every opportunity to share his OhioHealth experience.
“I was asked to speak at a meeting of 300-400 OhioHealth associates and share my story. I told them, ‘You’re all a part of saving my life.’ The doctors, the staff, the timing of everything — God orchestrated this. He used people at OhioHealth to bring about his plan for my life. I’m thankful God had them in the right place at the right time. They are life-changing.”
Greg Eaton, MD, is a member of OhioHealth Heart and Vascular Physicians. For more information about heart and vascular services at OhioHealth Mansfield Hospital, please visit OhioHealthHeartandVascular.com or call 567-241.7000.
