RICHFIELD, Ohio — Being grateful looks different to everyone. To 46-year-old Christi Eberhardt, being grateful means cooking for her family, sharing a laugh with loved ones, and not taking a second for granted.
She feels that way because it's literally a miracle that she's even here today.
"So, October 18th, 2006, I was working at Akron Children's Hospital. It was a normal day for me. I was completely healthy, felt fine that day," Christi told us. "I took a break and went out to the bridge that connects the hospital to the parking garage. I worked down in the emergency room and down there there was no reception. So went up to the bridge to make a phone call. And I don't remember anything else that happened."
What happened, which was captured on security video, was horrifying. Christi went into cardiac arrest.
Minutes went by without intervention.
"I had seven people walk by me and leave me," Christi said. "I was without any CPR or AEDs for close to six minutes. My first responder approached, checked, realized I did not have a heartbeat. So she yelled out for help and for somebody to get an AED."
Soon an army of Christi's co-workers rushed to help. In the ER, doctors had given up hope. All, but one: Dr. Erin Simon at Cleveland Clinic Akron General.
"She was doing her residency at the time. And her attending told her that I had passed and that she needed to give up on me ... and she wouldn't," Christi remembered.
By then, 62 minutes had gone by; Christi still had no heartbeat. Finally, after 13 shocks from an AED and endless CPR, Christi came back.
"The next day, I opened my eyes. I was still intubated, but I opened my eyes," Christi said.
"So they cooled my body off and the doctors told my family that there was a less than 5% chance I would ever wake from my coma. And if I woke 100% that I would be in like a vegetative state," Christi said. "I was in a coma for about four days. They started turning the cooling temperatures down and raising my body temperature back to normal. And I started responding a lot faster than what doctors said would be a typical average for somebody to respond. What I started to do was whoever was holding my hands, I started squeezing their hands. The doctors did not believe that I had any brain function or that I would be making a miraculous recovery."
The miracles continued. And those same doctors had to come back to see for themselves.
"I looked up and there was somebody staring at me that was not my doctor. I had no idea who it was. And he was one of the doctors that worked on me in the ER. And he came in, and he just said, 'I still can't believe it. I literally had to come and see for myself that you're here,'" Christi said. "I've had several doctors who worked on me that day tell me it's medically impossible that I am here today."
For the next 12 years, Christi was living her life with love, not fear.
"I was back to life, back to working. I worked with children with autism, loving my job. I had become a mother, which was the biggest blessing of my entire life," Christi said.
Life, however, had other plans.
"Woke up the one day and just felt like, 'Oh, you know, maybe I'm having like an anxiety attack,'" Christi remembered.
It wasn't an anxiety attack. It was a massive heart attack called SCAD (Spontaneous coronary artery dissection).
"I called my best friend who was a nurse, and I'm like, 'Hey, I'm just not feeling good. Could you come over?'" Christi said. "She came over and found me collapsed at my front door."
At the hospital, doctors said she'd need open heart surgery, triple bypass to be exact.
"I remember the doctor telling me I needed a defibrillator when I was 29. I needed a defibrillator. I had no idea what a defibrillator was. Now, 12 years later, I'm at the same hospital and I'm being told I needed to have open heart. Quite frankly, I didn't really know much about open heart either. So, they gave me an opportunity to see my family and my daughter. And the doctors told me that I needed to prepare and say goodbye to the ones that I loved. And to look in your little girl's face and to have to tell her goodbye is something that no mom should ever have to go through. No parent should ever have to go through," Christi said.
Her will to live was not tested. She wasn't going anywhere.
"I looked at my doctors and I told them, 'Don't you give up on me. I am a fighter,'" Christi said. "And I woke up the next morning and the first question that I asked was, 'Am I alive?'"
She had survived the unthinkable: Cardiac arrest, then a massive heart attack 12 years later. Doctors say the two were completely unrelated.
Today, she's more alive than ever. She's a major advocate for CPR and AED training, as well as the American Heart Association.
Plus, she's inspired her whole family to become advocates themselves, including her daughter Emily, who also has a heart condition.
While the medical world may never know why she survived, Christi does. She's here because she loves her family, and for a purpose she'll never give up on.
"I realize how blessed I am to be here. And I try to live my life in such a way that I'm giving that hope and blessings back to others," Christi said.
Editor's Note: The following video is from a previous, unrelated report.
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