His heart stopped beating while he was running the Wilmington Marathon. Here’s what happened next.

Sam Bobbitt, 56, is a highly experienced runner. As a physical education teacher and the track and cross-country coach at E.A. Laney High School in Wilmington, he feels right at home when running and has his routines down pat. So as he prepared to run the half-marathon in the Novant Health Wilmington Marathon, he never suspected the biggest surprise of his life was about to befall him: About a mile and a half into the race, he would suffer a cardiac arrest.

A critical medical emergency, cardiac arrest occurs when the heart suddenly stops beating, ceasing the flow of blood to the brain and other vital organs. It’s different from a heart attack, which is caused by a blocked or narrowed artery. More than 356,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur annually in the United States, and only 10% of those people survive.

But as Bobbitt said: “I was in the right place, at the right time, with the right people.”

Thanks to the quick-thinking action of nearby race attendees and Novant Health paramedics on the scene, Bobbitt made a full recovery. Today he is lacing up his Sauconys and hitting the pavement again with his students. And just a little less than two months after his frightening ordeal, he reunited with the first responders who saved his life.

A race for his life

Bobbitt doesn’t remember much about his cardiac arrest. It was during the early morning hours of Saturday, Feb. 22. He had just started the half-marathon race with a group of his students at the iconic Johnnie Mercers Pier in Wrightsville Beach.

“I remember we were running along, and I was telling three of my girls in front of me, and one beside me, ‘Hey, I'm right here,’” Bobbitt recalled. “And they say, as soon as I said that, a few seconds later, they looked back and they said, ‘Hey, where's Bobbitt?’”

While crossing the drawbridge that connects the island of Wrightsville Beach to the Wilmington mainland, Bobbitt collapsed. His terrified students screamed for help. One called 911 while another’s shouts prompted nearby runners to begin chest compressions, also known as hands-only CPR.

Paramedic Brandon Grubbs was one of several Novant Health emergency medical technicians on-site along the racecourse that day. He carefully threaded his Novant Health SUV through throngs of runners to come to Bobbitt’s aid. A second emergency first responder, paramedic Kieran Schwartz, was on the way in an ambulance to transport Bobbitt to Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center.

Delivering lifesaving care

When Grubbs reached Bobbitt, he did not have a pulse. But those precious moments of chest compressions by fellow runners were vital, Grubbs said. In fact, he thinks this helped save Bobbitt’s life.

Grubbs placed the paddles of an automated external defibrillator, or AED, on Bobbitt’s chest, measuring the electrical activity of the heart, then delivering a shock. Grubbs was continuing chest compressions when Schwartz arrived. The team delivered three more shocks to Bobbitt’s chest with the AED.

"Without CPR, by the time we get there, the heart's in a rhythm that's not shockable, meaning there's less chance of survival," Schwartz said. "Having pre-hospital CPR done before EMS arrives is 100% necessary to help the chain of survival in cardiac arrest."

Grubbs and Schwartz also administered medications through intraosseous (IO) access, involving using a drill-like device to insert a needle into the tibia, or shinbone. This allowed them to create a rapid and reliable access route for the vascular system, taking just 30 seconds or so to deliver medication.

Bobbitt was unconscious, but he remembers waking up in the ambulance and noticing an ache in his leg. Schwartz was performing an electrocardiogram (EKG) en route to the hospital when Bobbitt began to converse.

"It was surprising to have him awake and talking on the way to the hospital," Schwartz said. "That was the only time that I have seen that."

Once Bobbitt arrived at the emergency room, his pulse was steady. Doctors performed a cardiac catheterization diagnostic to confirm he had no blockage to his heart and had not suffered a heart attack. Three days later, they performed minimally invasive surgery to give him an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD), a small battery-operated defibrillator that deploys inside the chest in the event of another cardiac arrest. Bobbitt returned home Wednesday, four days after the marathon.

Reunited two months later

Two months after Grubbs and Schwartz delivered their lifesaving care, they met up with Bobbitt on campus at E.A. Laney High School. The trio shook hands, embraced and shared memories from that day.

“I want to thank you guys for all the things you did for me,” Bobbitt said. “For you, it’s probably every day. But for me, it’s once in a lifetime.”

Bobbitt shared that he recently began both biking and running again, with his first run following his cardiac arrest and ICD implant procedure totaling 6 miles.

For Grubbs and Schwartz, getting to reunite and chat with a community member whose life they saved was a special and unique experience.

“It’s awesome, it’s why we do what we do, each and every day,” Schwartz said.

Grubbs added that the experience felt a bit surreal.

“Being able to walk up and see him standing there — it’s really awesome knowing what we did that day mattered,” he said.

Grubbs said delivering care to Bobbitt motivated him to become a certified CPR instructor so that he can now teach others the important lifesaving technique. Time is one of the most important factors in determining whether a person experiencing cardiac arrest will survive.

“Early CPR and early defibrillation is what saves people,” he said.