By Christopher Collette
WTSP
FORT MYERS, Fla. — In the early morning hours of Jan. 31, Leroy Tarver, 70, lay dying in his Fort Myers home, a heart attack victim.
At 5:48 a.m., his wife of 49 years, Penola, 67, frantically called 911.
Police responded and EMS tried to revive him. It was too late. Police logs show he was pronounced dead by EMS at 6:12 a.m.
Emergency responders left.
But Leroy Tarver wasn’t dead.
Undertaker Horace Barrett Jr. arrived around 7:20 a.m. He opened the bedroom door and saw Tarver on the floor, tube still in his throat, defibrillator patches still on his chest.
He seemed lifeless. His left arm twitched. That didn’t concern Barrett; muscle spasms happen after death. Barrett knelt to feel for a pulse. Nothing.
Then, Tarver gasped for air.
“I said, ‘He’s not ready for me yet!’” Barrett said, noting Tarver’s son-in-law had told him emergency medical services warned there may be breathing sounds, but it would just be air from the rescue attempt escaping his lungs.
“But I know what that sounds like,” Barrett said. “This was different. Dead people don’t breathe.”
Fort Myers police victims advocate Chevala Jones, who had been at the house 20 minutes consoling the family, was stunned. A police officer, posted outside, came in to help keep the family calm as Jones dialed 911 and rushed into the bedroom.
“I did get down with him, and I grabbed his arm to check his pulse and I felt a faint pulse and I could hear him trying to breathe,” Jones said. “His hand tried to grab my arm. And I was just talking to him and telling him, ‘Please, Mr. Tarver, just breathe. I know it’s hard, but your family is all here, and we have help on the way.’”
Barrett and Jones wondered if they should remove the tube, but neither having medical experience, they felt best to leave it be.
Barrett debated putting Tarver on his own stretcher and rushing him to the hospital. He decided against that, too.
“When the ambulance got there again, it seemed like they were taking their time, like they didn’t take it seriously,” Barrett said. “I can’t say I wouldn’t have thought the same, like, ‘What kind of joke are you all playing?’”
There were shouts of “Hallelujah!” and, “It’s a miracle!” as Tarver was rushed to Gulf Coast Medical Center.
Their joy was short-lived. Leroy Tarver died in the hospital Feb. 3.
“What bothers me is, he was obviously alive — there was life there,” Barrett said. “He was probably trying to catch a breath that whole time in that room, alone. My question is, if they had taken him to the hospital sooner, would he still be here?”
Tarver’s family, who declined to speak, has hired attorney Craig Stevens of Morgan & Morgan, though it’s not certain a civil suit will be filed.
Stevens said Tarver was a retired construction worker who lived in Southwest Florida for 49 years. A member of the Jerusalem Baptist Church on Palm Avenue, he had five living children and 16 grandchildren.
Ongoing investigation
Scott Tuttle, deputy chief operations manager with Lee County EMS, said he couldn’t comment or release call logs, citing medical privacy laws. He said the case is under review by the county’s Risk Management, overseen by Risk Manager Mike Figueroa. As of Friday, no one had been fired.
“It’s going to be a collaborative effort,” Figueroa said of the review. “When we have an employee issue of this magnitude, it’s going to involve us, as well as EMS and human resources. There is an ongoing investigation, so the information we can release at this point will be minimal.”
EMS protocol can vary from county to county. In Collier, EMS Deputy Chief Wayne Watson said if there ever is doubt, EMS will continue resuscitation efforts until arriving at a hospital, or a supervising doctor is called and gives the OK to stop.
It’s possible
Dr. Robert Pfalzgraf of the District 21 Medical Examiner’s Office, was quick to note he’s “not in the resuscitation business,” but said a misdiagnosis of death can be caused by a range of factors, from human error to a malfunctioning equipment.
He said it would be unlikely — but not impossible — for someone to be clinically dead, and come back to life after medical efforts ceased. More feasible, though, is the person is still alive, but signs of life are faint or undetectable.
“I don’t know of any cases locally, but I have heard stories from other medical examiners about people who have been in coolers who were pronounced dead, and it turns out they weren’t,” Pfalzgraf said. “They usually don’t survive, but it does happen.”
Barrett, whose family has been in the funeral business at Barrett’s Funeral Chapel in Dunbar since 1969, can’t recall anything similar — and he would remember.
“But the body is a strange thing,” Barrett said. “I think that’s why doctors say they ‘practice’ medicine — they haven’t perfected it yet.”
Republished with permission from WTSP.com