The Longest Day of My Year | Emergency Life Flight in Alaska to Anchorage

Written, Spoken, and Posted to YouTube June 21, 2024 | posted to alaskanomad.com on February 4, 2026

Today is the longest day of the year, it’s summer solstice 2024… but, it wasn’t my longest day of the year. My longest day of the year was my Alaska adventure that ended with being life-flighted by helicopter to Anchorage Providence Hospital for a near-death experience. So, this video is a bit more sobering than the usual, and it’s the first one I’ve made that is actually of ME on the camera, which feels pretty weird! But there’s been a large number of people who have asked what in the world happened.

On Sunday, June 2, 2024, Jill and I flew back from my sister Audra’s wedding in Edmonton, Canada. We were hoping to visit someone in the hospital, but Jill wasn’t feeling well. Our bags weren’t arriving for several more hours, so Jill took a COVID test. It was positive.

We spent the week low-key. A COVID-19 test for me was negative a few days later, when I was planning to see another person who had had surgery. I started having shortness of breath later that week. Each day, it was progressing worse to the point that I couldn’t go up and down the stairs at our house without being out of breath. If I walked to the mailbox, I had to take a break on the way there. I just assumed it was a false negative COVID test and Googled the symptoms I had for confirmation. Maybe it was.

Days passed... lots of days… it finally began to get worse with some chest pain. Every time I did any activity, I was out of breath with pressure up the back of my neck if I continued. If I stopped for a few minutes, I would be fine. If I simply worked in my office, all was good

I started wondering on Friday, with the pressure in my neck, if it had something to do with blood pressure. I had just had my annual physical with very good blood pressure on May 14. I went to Walmart and sat for the blood pressure machine. The result was 153/88, with a RED notice indicating VERY HIGH.

I went straight to an urgent care. Gave them my best rundown, about COVID, my Apple Watch telling me my heart went from 65 average to 57 for a few days, now it was back up. My oxygen level repeatedly showed 95-96%, even though it’s usually 99%. My blood pressure was all of a sudden high.

I must just have these symptoms of COVID, right, and just got a false negative test. All of those circumstances were essentially dismissed and misdiagnosed as a lung inflammation issue after another negative covid test.

I took a breathing test. I was administered a breathing treatment. When I said it hadn’t improved, I was asked to walk around the parking lot to see if I was sure. It had not.

I was prescribed a 5-day Steroid pill regimen, Advair, an albuterol inhaler, and told, ‘give these a couple of days. If you want to see if you might have a slight chance of a blood clot, you can go to the hospital lab for a D-dimer test. If you really want to make sure it’s not something more, go to the ER.’ When I asked about the ER and his opinion, I was told that nothing he saw indicated this needed an ER visit; he just had to say that, but it was up to me.

I again mentioned the blood pressure and was summarily dismissed, that my shortness of breath had nothing to do with my blood pressure, as it had come down somewhat by the time I was there.

I went to the hospital for a D-Dimer test, where they drew extra blood in case other tests might be needed later, but not to the ER.

Jill and I were scheduled to go on vacation to a remote cabin in Prince William Sound on Sunday, June 16. But our boat was in Homer Harbor. I needed to pick it up. All was great as long as I did no physical activity. So, I would stay the night on the boat in Homer (Friday, June 14), take my son, Connor, and his girlfriend, Saydee, and their family fishing on Saturday (June 15), bring the boat home to pack, and head out to Prince William Sound the next day.

It took me a lot of trips up and down the ramp carrying things to prep the boat for the night and the next day.

I went to sleep after completing the 6 pills of steroids for the day, the Advair, and the albuterol huffing. I slept restlessly and woke up around 2 am needing to go to the bathroom, but annoyed that I’d have to walk down the docks, up the harbor ramps, down the parking lot, to pee… I peed in a bottle. And got back in bed, winded. I was short of breath and had some chest pain. I researched the medicines I was on to see that they had side effects of high blood pressure and feelings of indigestion (confirmed by the pharmacist later).

My chest continued to hurt. I had no numbness in my arm and wasn’t short of breath anymore. It fit some of the side effects of the prescribed medicines that I had never been on. But I searched the Homer hospital in case it got worse. About an hour later, it stopped. I fell asleep and woke up in the morning.

We went fishing for the day! Caught loads of fish, halibut, pacific cod, pollock, skate, sculpin, irish lords, all kinds. It was awesome. When I explained to Saydee’s dad, Steven, my symptoms, he immediately said, “That sounds like a heart attack. You need to get that checked out!” I demurred, referring to the steroid side effects, possibility of asymptomatic COVID from almost 2 weeks earlier now, and maybe it was long COVID inflammation, the doctor thinks it’s a lung issue.’

We started to head home and docked the boat at the launch. I walked to get the truck and had to take two breaks. I cranked the boat on the trailer and drove a few hours home just fine. When I got home, I went to disconnect the boat from the trailer and had to take a break while cranking the leg lifter. I thought to myself, “I can’t go to the middle of nowhere in Prince William Sound if I can’t do this small thing.” I went in and told Jill about Homer in the night and about Steven’s comments (I had already reconfirmed his thoughts with him through text).

We went to the ER. We live in a small town, and our hospital does not offer much advanced care. But they did not mess around with me. My butt barely hit the intake chair before I was back in a room, EKG’d, hooked up to all the monitors, and an IV line with blood taken. While it was being tested for what is called Troponin (and other stuff), the doctor came in and said to me that he couldn’t ‘force me to stay,’ but that if I stayed until Monday, I could get a stress test that morning instead of having to make an appointment. We decided to stay.

A little bit later, he came back and said, " Your Troponin levels, which are a chemical only found in blood when the heart has already sustained damage, is elaveted. Tests only really detect it above 14, which is already way higher than normal. He said that at 20, they pay attention. At 30-40, he would be watching it… Mine was at 118. They tested a few hours later to see if it went up or down. It was 114. We had him test my blood from my lab the day before, and it was 100.

His thought was that I had not had a heart attack yet. But I was VERY close, and damage was already occurring. They would Life Flight me to Anchorage by helicopter. Jill prayed with me, and I said goodbye to Jill. At that time, I wasn’t sure that I would see her again. She went home to prepare for driving to Anchorage in the morning. Connor and Saydee planned to join her. I slept a few hours in the ER and was picked up at 3:45 am and flown to the Providence Anchorage emergency room by LifeMed.

I was run through all the same tests. Answered all the questions. A shift change happened, and my new nurse came in. When he asked if I had any questions, I said, “Did they test my troponin levels this morning?” He checked and said they were 2,000. It was at that time that I thought that I would possibly die. No one else had arrived yet.

Brady arrived early since he lives in Anchorage. Jill, Connor, and Saydee showed up a bit later. The doctors and nurses went to work. I was being pumped with blood thinners, nitroglycerine under my tongue, and through the IV. The cardiologist came in and told me that I had had a small heart attack. I explained to him the importance of context for test numbers given to patients. Going from under 14 as normal to 118 being on a LifeMed helicopter to Anchorage to 2,000 with no context? Please tell people what those mean a little better in the future.

I went into an emergency angiogram and angioplasty, where I received one stent. I recovered in the hospital overnight and came home, where I am now.

The cardiologist told me that my artery was 100% blocked. It was the only one with a blockage. It was 100%. But since I never smoked, vaped, never drank alcohol, was active and exercised regularly, ate healthily, and was only a little overweight, he said that my body had created collateral arteries where, over what could have been years of worsening blockage, my body grew its own bypass arteries around the blockage. Between those and the possibility that the blockage intermittently opened over the course of those 8-9 days kept this experience from becoming a massive heart attack and possibly fatal.

The next morning, they performed an echocardiogram to see that I, indeed, have damage to my heart. But it will not be permanent damage. I need to take it easy as I ramp up the next few weeks. Can participate in all my regular activities over the next month, and will start a Cardio Rehabilitation program in the middle of July. The doctor expects that I will be better than I was before this occurred, now that the blockage is gone.

I’m sure I will research and speculate how it all happened to be that this one, single artery was fully blocked. My family does not really have a history of this.

But, I will say… STRESS is real. It is extremely detrimental to a person’s health year-after-year-after-year. Pastors are highly susceptible to this. The body keeps the score. At some point, the stress stops being a season and starts being your life. Get things checked out. Take care of yourself. Make necessary changes and set needed boundaries.

I love Jesus, and I look forward to the day I will meet him face-to-face. But, I’d rather not do that soon. I love my life, and I am grateful that we can wait a bit on that.

Thank you to everyone who prayed and for the many, many little miracles, serendipitous situations, #science with God’s help and healing along with the doctors and nurses at Central Peninsula Hospital in Soldotna, the Life Med pilot and crew, and the doctors and nurses from Anchorage Providence and the Alaska Heart and Vascular Institute, and to my wife and children who will certainly keep me on a path toward health. I’m grateful to be here. Thanks for 'listening'.

If any part of this story resonates with you, I’d genuinely love to hear your story too.

Alaska Nomad exists to share honest moments like this—learning, paying attention, and finding meaning in the middle of everyday life. If you’d like to connect more, you’re welcome to subscribe to the newsletter. I share reflections there that don’t always make it onto social media.