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fixes empty view field issue
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ECMO and full-time monitoring kept Jimmy alive while his body recovered from DVT.
fixes empty view field issue
Jimmy takes in the view of the stadium from the eighth floor of Chandler Hospital, where he re-learned how to walk.
fixes empty view field issue
“Big Blue Nation is a force. It’s a power. It’s a family.”
fixes empty view field issue
“To be here, and to be able to look back over at the hospital...it’s pretty incredible.”
Jimmy Rhoades

“I want to be at the stadium and look back at this hospital.”

“I asked him if I could get a second opinion because I had friends that worked in Evansville, about 35 miles away, in the heart hospital. Dr. Vora leaned over on the bed and he said, ‘Yeah, I can start the paperwork and I'll get you out of here. But just so you know, if you're going to Evansville, you'll be dead before you get there.’”

By the time Jimmy Rhoades got to the hospital, he was sure he was dying. He’d even told his wife what he wanted for his last meal—chicken and dumplings. He’d been sick for weeks, first with what his doctors in Owensboro thought was the flu, then pneumonia, then a lung infection. The truth was much worse.

Jimmy was suffering from deep vein thrombosis, or DVT. His lungs were filled with blood clots, which could have escaped to his heart and killed him at any moment. Dr. Vora’s warning was Jimmy’s last conscious memory in Owensboro. While his medical team was able to remove the clots and repair the damage to his heart and lungs, they were unable to wean him off bypass. That’s when they called UK HealthCare.

UK’s ECMO team traveled across the state to get Jimmy, who was transported, with his chest open, to the cardiac ICU at UK HealthCare's Gill Heart & Vascular Institute. “I spent over eight days with my sternum open,” said Jimmy. “Living on ECMO. I was totally unconscious for 27 days.”

Black and white photo of Jimmy unconscious and hooked up to lots of medical equipment to keep him alive.
ECMO and full-time monitoring kept Jimmy alive while his body recovered from DVT.
Jimmy looks out the hospital window towards the football stadium.
Jimmy takes in the view of the stadium from the eighth floor of Chandler Hospital, where he re-learned how to walk.
Jimmy interacts with a large screen to design his own Rhoades UK football jersey.
“Big Blue Nation is a force. It’s a power. It’s a family.”
Jimmy looks down at the UK Football field.
“To be here, and to be able to look back over at the hospital...it’s pretty incredible.”

Jimmy was eventually able to be weaned off ECMO, but he had a long road ahead. After being unconscious for nearly a month, he had to learn how to walk again. That process involved endless slow laps around the eighth floor of Chandler Hospital with his respiratory therapist.

“There was one corner up there on the eighth floor where I could stand and see the football stadium. I always told them, ‘Someday when I'm strong enough, I want to be at the football stadium and look back at this hospital.’”

Jimmy, a former motorsports race announcer, was well-known among the UK fan community in Owensboro, where he’d do game calls at local sports bars. But his experience at the hospital made him an even stronger member of Big Blue Nation.

“It’s not a fan community, it’s a family. When you bleed blue, nothing can compare to it. But my involvement with UK goes a lot further than athletics. I know that without ECMO and Dr. Sekela and his team and the power of prayer, I wouldn’t be here.”

With the support of his family, his community and his medical teams at UK HealthCare and back home in Owensboro, Jimmy regained his strength, learned how to walk, and was able to return to his home and his family. And 18 months after his initial arrival at UK, Jimmy returned, stood in Kroger Field, and looked back at the hospital that saved his life.

“Don't ever give up. Find the strength inside yourself to continue to grow and fight the challenge with all the vigor and all the belief that you can beat this and you're going to continue to get better.”

Produced by UK HealthCare Brand Strategy

Topics in this Story

    Big Blue Nation-Heart