Rick Riney arrived at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church early so he could rehearse with the choir for a special Mass. Already, the line of people wanting to see and touch the relic of St. Jude the Apostle ran throughout the inside of the church, out the front doors and into the parking lot.

When the Mass began that Monday night in March, Riney was in a roped-off area with the other singers and musicians. About 20 minutes into the service, during a part where he was standing, Riney fell straight back, hitting his head.

Word spread quickly that someone had passed out. A woman in the congregation loudly asked if anyone was a doctor or knew CPR. A man jumped in and started chest compressions. Riney looked purple. While someone called 911, another man ran outside and asked an officer working the event to radio The Woodlands Fire Department, which had a station directly across the street. 

Inside, several other medical professionals in the congregation - a trauma surgeon, a physician’s assistant and a nurse - were scrambling to find Riney’s pulse to no avail. Another man trained in CPR took over compressions until two teams of paramedics arrived. It took two shocks from an automated external defibrillator, or AED, to restart Riney’s heart. The 66-year-old remained unconscious.

The priest, who had paused the Mass, noted that the congregation spontaneously began reciting Hail Marys, praying for Riney’s life. Riney’s wife, Barbara, sitting 15 feet away from her husband and being comforted by a friend, managed to call her daughter. Her daughter’s husband is a cardiac electrophysiologist who specializes in the heart’s electrical system and heart rhythm disorders. Dr. Scott Greenberg sped to the church and helped direct care until his father-in-law was in the ambulance.

Another priest touched Riney’s head with a sacred anointing oil. Several people said that was when Riney began to breathe and started to regain consciousness. As they loaded Riney on the stretcher, a parishioner, who asked if anyone had a religious item to send with Riney to the hospital, now clutched an object that had touched the relic of St. Jude. She tucked it into Riney’s sock. 

As Dr. Greenberg followed the ambulance with Mrs. Riney, the team at St. Luke’s Health -The Woodlands Hospital was preparing for Riney’s arrival. Dr. Chacko Alexander, the cardiologist on call and Greenberg’s colleague, was alerted about a possible heart attack by an app on his phone used to activate the hospital’s early response protocol. He rushed to St. Luke’s and was waiting when Riney made it to the emergency room.

The fact Riney was alive was remarkable given that out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival in the United States is “pretty abysmal with more than a 90% mortality rate, killing over 350, 000 people in the United States each year. Whenever we have these kinds of cases, we worry about brain injury because of lack of oxygen. The brain is one organ not very forgiving to lack of oxygen and time to restoration of blood flow is crucial. He had no brain damage at all because of the quickness of the resuscitation with effective CPR and the first AED shock being delivered within five minutes of his cardiac arrest. He is lucky.” Alexander said.

Because of his unexplained cardiac arrest, Riney was taken to the cardiac catheterization lab to make sure he didn’t have a heart attack, which is typically caused by a blockage in the arteries that supply the heart. His cardiac cath demonstrated no evidence of a heart attack.

“This was a completely electrical event,” Alexander said. “He had a very dangerous, malignant kind of arrhythmia leading to sudden cardiac death.”

Riney had ventricular fibrillation, or V-Fib, and Greenberg placed an implantable cardiac defibrillator (ICD) in his chest to shock his heart back to a normal rhythm if needed. The ICD was originally manufactured by St. Jude Medical.

“St. Jude has provided me with a true miracle, both physically and spiritually,” Riney said.

The father of two is grateful to be alive to enjoy his retirement and travel the world, spend time with his family, and serve as an inspiration to others.

“I don’t know what God’s doing here, but obviously he wants to work through me to reach others, and I’m a willing participant,” he said.