VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — A Virginia Beach man suffered a massive heart attack while driving over a month ago, despite working out regularly. Luckily, the spot where his car crashed is right next to a Sentara cardiologist's office, who ran outside and took swift action.
Now, Jeff Geraci is sharing his story so others aren't taken by surprise by sudden, potentially deadly heart issues.
Jeff says he has a second lease on life, especially given how serious the heart attack was.
"My widow maker, the lower anterior descending artery was 95% blocked, and the upper part, and it was 90% blocked on the lower part," he said.
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Jeff says he was driving home after working out at Orange Theory Fitness in the Hilltop section of Virginia Beach when suddenly, he stopped breathing.
"The confusion when I woke up with things in my arm and people running around, it was like a dream, a muddled dream, and foggy," he recalled. "I asked the nurse what happened, and he said, 'You have a heart attack. You crashed your car.'"
The 64-year-old financial planner remembers exercising on the rowing machine, lifting some weights, followed by some time on the treadmill.
"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," Jeff shared.
He was driving down First Colonial Road when he had the attack, crossing over multiple lanes of traffic. He didn't hit any cars on the busy roadway before running into a sign of a nearby business. Shortly after, his vehicle came to a stop in the parking lot.
It so just happened that he crashed near the medical office of Dr. Deepak Talreja, the chief of cardiology for Sentara Health, who heard the crash.
"I sprint over there, calling 911 on my phone," Dr. Talreja recalled when sharing what happened with Jeff. "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."
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Dr. Talreja says after assessing Jeff, it was clear that the heart attack was severe.
"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 explains. "But fortunately, we got things restarted very quickly, and so God was watching out..."
Dr. Talreja stresses it was the quick response that made the difference: "So if he'd gone eight minutes or so without CPR and without blood flow, then we can probably resuscitate the heart for another 10 minutes or so, but the brain doesn't recover, and so [he] wouldn't be with us today."
Jeff says he has a family history of heart issues, but he thought his active lifestyle would keep him in the clear.
"My father had two heart attacks. My mother died of a heart attack... one sister has heart issues," he shared. "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."
I asked Jeff why he wanted to share his story. "It's such a testimony of God's greatness, of all the things that had to happen to keep me alive," he responded. "Kurt, I'm blessed. It's a miracle. God was there, and thank God Dr. Talreja was there."
Jeff acknowledges he's still processing this miracle: "I got an opportunity to come back, so there's got to be a reason. And every morning, I pray and think about, if I'm here, I need to be doing more than I was doing... Try to be a better person every day. Try to make everybody smile every day. Try to be an example for my family and warn them and friends. It's wonderful. I mean, it's a miracle."
Jeff is back to working out and he says he'll continue to get checked out by doctors. He's already made changes to his diet and stopped drinking alcohol. He believe his case drives home the point of knowing your family history and asking yourself a question that could end up saving your life: when's the last time you had your cholesterol checked?
