‘I’ve got a pulse!’: Mere seconds from death of cardiac arrest, St. Louis patient beats the odds, makes miraculous recovery

‘I’ve got a pulse!’: Mere seconds from death of cardiac arrest, St. Louis patient beats the odds, makes miraculous recovery

Mere seconds from death, a local man who nearly died of cardiac arrest is now vowing to pay it forward two years later.

Tony Meneses is a first-generation Filipino American who has spent the majority of his adult life living in St. Louis and working in IT before retiring.

He and his spouse of nearly five years, Paula Howard, call south St. Louis City home, but they’ve made a habit or traveling the world together. If he isn’t traveling, you could probably find Meneses on a bike, taking part in rides and races across the area.

His healthy lifestyle made his ordeal even more unexpected. While at a party in 2022, he collapsed, eventually entering cardiac arrest.

“I felt fine, kind of walking around,” Meneses said. “Then suddenly, I felt fatigued. I was going for my chair, and next thing I know, I had collapsed.”

Meneses came seconds from death. Rushed to a nearby Emergency room at Mercy Hospital, doctors there administered CPR for more than an hour, trying to resuscitate him to no avail.

After several unsuccessful attempts to revive him, doctors told Howard she should say her final goodbyes. As she did, doctors began to unhook the various machines from Meneses, when something out of a movie happened.

After relearning how to walk, eat and drink, Meneses is now able to lead a normal life, nearly two years after the day he collapsed. He can only liken his ordeal to something out of a Hollywood film, thankful to the swarms of doctors across all three hospitals for saving him.

“It’s like Saving Private Ryan,” Meneses said. “They had teams lined up that would rotate through in the mornings, the evenings.”

Meneses says that the effort to save him is priceless, something he appreciates even more because several of his family members spent time working in the medical field.

It’s part of the reason that he chose to share this story now. He hopes that it inspires others to become doctors and nurses, to help others and save more lives. In the future, he hopes to speak to young people about the importance of doctors and maintaining a healthy heart.

Dr. Schilling says two common ways to promote heart health are exercising and eating healthy. But he adds that much like in Meneses’s case, severe symptoms can present themselves suddenly.

He says if you begin to feel several symptoms like chest pain, fatigue, nausea, or extreme shortness of breath, to get to a doctor’s office or, in a severe case, an emergency room as soon as possible.

Meneses and Howard plan to get back to their normal traveling habits while enjoying time with their siblings and children.

His condition was brought on by Ischemic Cardiomyopathy, a more common form of heart disease that hinders the heart’s ability to pump enough blood through the body.

Doctors in St. Louis found Meneses a heart transplant at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. His family helped charter a private plane to ensure he could be transferred to Mayo safely.

After relearning how to walk, eat and drink, Meneses is now able to lead a normal life, nearly two years after the day he collapsed. He can only liken his ordeal to something out of a Hollywood film, thankful to the swarms of doctors across all three hospitals for saving him.

“It’s like Saving Private Ryan,” Meneses said. “They had teams lined up that would rotate through in the mornings, the evenings.”

Meneses says that the effort to save him is priceless, something he appreciates even more because several of his family members spent time working in the medical field.

It’s part of the reason that he chose to share this story now. He hopes that it inspires others to become doctors and nurses, to help others and save more lives. In the future, he hopes to speak to young people about the importance of doctors and maintaining a healthy heart.

Dr. Schilling says two common ways to promote heart health are exercising and eating healthy. But he adds that much like in Meneses’s case, severe symptoms can present themselves suddenly.

He says if you begin to feel several symptoms like chest pain, fatigue, nausea, or extreme shortness of breath, to get to a doctor’s office or, in a severe case, an emergency room as soon as possible.

Meneses and Howard plan to get back to their normal traveling habits while enjoying time with their siblings and children.