Perfect Timing

Tuan Pham was feeling pretty good about himself as he approached the 12-mile mark of the Long Beach Half Marathon in Southern California. The run on Oct. 15, 2023, was the 47-year-old's seventh such event, and he couldn't wait to celebrate at the finish line with his teenage son, who had raced ahead. Pham took another step or two, and that was the last thing he remembers.

He can't recall staggering or falling face-first to the ground, where he lay motionless as runners skirted him. He had no pulse, nor was he breathing. Three blocked arteries had conspired to do him in. He was clinically dead. If he didn't get help soon, he'd be officially dead.

The American Heart Association says the odds of surviving a cardiac arrest outside of a hospital are less than 12%. Pham's only chance of survival was if someone, say, a cardiologist, happened to pass by.

Well...

Just as Pham hit the ground, Ryan Chiu, a cardiothoracic surgeon from MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center, was leaving a restaurant a few feet away. Dr. Chiu immediately recognized what was happening. He ran to Pham's side and began chest compressions. He enlisted the help of a bystander, who took over on compressions while Dr. Chiu called his hospital and told them to prepare an operating room and gather a surgical team, stat. They had an emergency on their hands.

Minutes later, an ambulance arrived. Medics scooped up Pham and sped him away to the hospital, with Dr. Chiu following in his own car.

The triple bypass surgery that Dr. Chiu performed was a success, and Pham is alive and well-well enough to return to the route of the Long Beach Half Marathon and pick up where he left off.

"I'm that guy," he told the Long Beach Post. "I'm going back and finishing the last 2 miles."