By An Aberdeen man is counting his blessings after a heart condition caused him to fall in his driveway when temperatures had plummeted below zero.
Virgil Nelson doesn’t know how long he was out in the cold, but he knows had it not been for two strangers passing by, he wouldn’t be around to tell the story.
Nelson was plugging in his truck in frigid temperatures on Feb. 18. He said when he tried to stand up, he tumbled backwards.
MORE: 22 shocks help save Aberdeen man who had massive heart attack at hospital
“I’ve been in pretty good shape all my life, so I don’t know why,” Nelson, 84, said. “When I fell backward, I got on my hands and knees and tried to get up and I couldn’t. I didn’t have the strength to get up. I just hurt all over.”
Nelson was screaming for help, hoping a neighbor would hear.
‘There is a God up there’
“And nobody was coming. And I knew I was gonna die out there. So I thought, well, there’s one last person to turn to — God,” he said.
That’s when two men who were passing saw Nelson and helped him up and inside.
“They got me in the house. The only thing I can say is there is a God up there,” Nelson said.
When his wife JoJo Jungemann next saw Nelson, his core temperature was 88.
The high temperature in Aberdeen on Feb. 18 was 2 below, according to the National Weather Service. The low was 25 below.
Virgil Nelson of Aberdeen has been in and out of the hospital following his near-death experience after he fell outside in subzero weather due to a heart condition. His wife JoJo Jungemann is a nurse practitioner. Aberdeen Insider photo by Shannon Marvel.
One of the men who stopped to help Nelson was Bob Casper, the women’s soccer coach at Northern State University.
Casper said the weather was dangerously cold. He said he was driving home from work and was on a call with a friend when he saw Nelson laying on the ground by a pickup.
“It was interesting because it looked like he may have been doing something with the vehicle,” Casper said.
But he decided to circle the block to get a better look at what was happening on South State Street.
Casper
That’s when Jon Reich also stopped to see if Nelson needed any help.
MORE: Heart attack was unexpected for 38-year-old Aberdeen mother
“That was really great, it really helped having two people. We just went to him, he had some blood on his elbow, his leg was quite scratched. We got him up and got him into his house. We were able to figure out his house keys,” Casper said.
Reich called emergency services, Casper said. After they got Nelson into his home, Reich left because his son was in his vehicle.
Casper said the whole ordeal was a “crazy 30 minutes.
“It’s just one of those things, you’ve just got to do it,” he said.
Heart got worse in past year
Nelson’s cardiologist, Dr. Susheel Gundewar at Avera St. Luke’s Hospital, said Nelson showed no signs of having blockages in his heart, but had a stiff valve, according to the results of an echocardiogram done about a year before the fall.
“Patients with a valve like that have episodes where they can pass out,” Gundewar said.
Gundewar
MORE: Simon says heart transplant gave him a new lease on life
He said when Nelson was brought to the hospital after falling, tests showed he had four blockages in his heart.
“And once they fall with this blockage that he had, it was very hard for his heart to work hard enough to get him back up,” Gundewar said.
He said a stress test didn’t pick up any irregularities, which can sometimes be detected when so much of the heart is underperforming.
Nelson’s wife said that before the fall, he showed no symptoms that suggested he had a major heart blockage.
“He was a walking time bomb,” Jungemann said.
Now, Nelson has four stents in his heart that have helped alleviate the blockages as he recovers.
“I don’t know how he survived that,” said Jungemann, who is a certified nurse practitioner for Avera Health in Aberdeen.
MORE: After heart attack, Bidwell shifts focus to family and future
Nelson’s eyes teared up as he recalled his near-death encounter, but maintained his sense of humor.
“I’ve got an off-the-wall joke. I’m not ready to die yet. I’ve got a lot more people to piss off,” he said.
Nelson has yet to meet up with Casper and Reich, but hopes to have them over for dinner to thank them.