(A true story)
My name is Brad Tuttle and I am just an ordinary guy who has a question for you. How would you feel if you were in your early seventies, six feet tall, 185 pounds, go to the gym three days a week, enjoy caring for an acre lot with many berms and flower gardens, and after each annual physical you are asked, “Are you a runner?” — and you wake up in the cardiac ward of a hospital and are told by your wife you died?! Yes, that is what happened to me! I was totally shocked and bewildered because I was in such good shape, I never thought this would happen to me. I have always felt somewhat invulnerable; independent and never had to be rely on someone else, yet there I was in ICU dependent on everyone for everything!
I do not remember anything at all about the day I died. My memory is gone until nine days later when I left the cardiac ward and was transferred to a rehab hospital. My wife, family, and friends have filled in the details for me, including the account of the paramedic that a friend recorded. After I was discharged, my wife and I met with the paramedic captain to hear first hand all that transpired.
That day we had about ten inches of snow fall and I was out shoveling snow off the back deck clearing a path to take out our dog. When I came back in, I said to Juneal, my wife of fifty-five years, “My back and shoulders hurt.” I probably figured it was from shoveling, so I went in the bathroom to rub some balm on my muscles.
Juneal was in the next room talking on her cellphone when she heard a loud thud. She ran into the bathroom and saw me on the floor between the stool and the wall, a space of less than twelve inches. My eyes were rolled back and my mouth was wide open. I was dead. Juneal was born and raised on the farm and had seen many dead animals so she knew what dead looks like.
She instantly dialed 911.
“What’s your emergency?” the dispatcher asked.
“My husband is dead.”
The instructions came fast. “Place him with his back flat on the floor so you can start CPR.” “But he’s fallen in between the wall and stool! I can’t do that!”
“You have to do it,” the dispatcher said.
Juneal is only four feet, ten inches tall. But she somehow managed to lift me up and get me flat on the floor. She says, “I believe an angel helped me lift him.”
The 911 dispatcher instructed her how to perform CPR and Juneal started in rhythmically pushing on my chest all the while praying, while the dispatcher kept the count going over the phone.
After about five minutes, Juneal asked, “Where are the paramedics?”
“Keep going. They are on their way.”
After about ten minutes, Juneal told the dispatcher, “I’m getting really tired. Where are they?”
“Keep it up, Juneal! Harder and faster.”
Juneal kept up the CPR.
After about fifteen minutes, she heard a knock on the front door. Juneal had to move me out of the way to get the bathroom door open so she could let in the first responders.
When she went to the front door and opened it, the paramedic who rushed in said, “Hi Juneal, where’s Brad?”
We live in the county in Colorado between two cities with a combined population of roughly 250,000 people. There are probably around a hundred-plus paramedics and EMTs serving our county. But the paramedic who came to our door is a born again, mighty man of God whom I have known for at least twenty years.
That is our God. His character is abounding with grace and mercy toward His children. When I think about the goodness God displayed, I simply raise my head and hands to Heaven, and with tears flowing down my checks, cry out, “Thank You, Jesus! Oh, thank You Jesus!”
The Paramedic’s Story:
When you hear the whole story from beginning to end, and how everything came together, you know this is a God story, rather than a medical story, as only God could put this together.
It was a Monday evening when the call came through as an “echo medical” or cardiac arrest. When I heard the address and the area I was going to, I didn’t realize it was Brad’s house until I arrived – although I had been there multiple times. We used to meet here for prayer in the mornings when I was part of the men’s prayer team that would go and pray for businesses and needs in the early-2000s.
The ambulances, sheriffs, and fire trucks from two cities were all dispatched because everybody was so busy that night. The computer picks the responders closest to the house. Four different agencies from both cities were dispatched to Brad’s house—agencies that rarely work together. That tells me that God was orchestrating it. This just doesn’t happen.
Juneal was the superstar in all of this because she started praying. And she listened to the dispatcher and started CPR on Brad right away, while she was praying for her husband. If she had not started that, Brad’s chances for survival would have gone down even more.
The fire department got there and started working on him. On that fire truck were two people of faith, one of them who goes to the church I attend. After we moved Brad to the kitchen to have more room to work, we checked and he had no pulse. We continued to work on him and had to shock him with a defibrillator three times to obtain a slight pulse, but then lost it again. He was still unconscious. So, I and the other firefighter from my church started praying in the Spirit. Like the Bible says, if you do not know what else to pray, you pray in the Spirit.
My job was to be a paramedic, but I wanted to save my friend. I knew we had to pray. Juneal was on the phone after we took over, calling every prayer warrior in the country to pray on behalf of Brad. I felt the pressure as he is one of the biggest intercessors in the region. I honestly don’t know if my prayer was a selfish prayer. I said, God, I don’t want to be associated with the death of Brad Tuttle. I don’t. This was all going through my head as we are doing our medical procedures.
When we loaded him into our ambulance, we had to start CPR again as he had not woken up.
Our ambulance was another God thing because the EMT at our headquarters station was available. God coordinated all these people who did not even know they were being maneuvered as chess pieces.
He was in the back of the ambulance, still unresponsive though we had gotten a pulse back, but he was not waking up. We had a heart monitor on him and he kept flatlining on the way over to the hospital, so we had to keep shocking him with the defibrillator. I have been doing this for almost thirty years, and knew the statistics were all stacked against him with his age and him having a massive sudden heart attack out of the blue. It is rare that anybody of that age with a massive blockage of the heart ever comes back.
I was going to insert a breathing tube in Brad’s throat when I had a check in my spirit. I wish I could tell everybody that I had this Jesus and Lazarus moment, but there was nothing. I just looked at the firefighter with me and I asked, “Are you a man of faith?”
He said, “Yeah.”
So I put my hands on Brad’s head and he put his hands on Brad’s chest. I prayed, “Lord, this is Brad Tuttle, one of your servants. If this is supposed to work out, bring Brad back.”
Not even thirty seconds after those words came out of my mouth, Brad woke up. Not like I have seen in the past where you kind of get pulses back and their eyes kind of open up. Brad woke up, and started asking, “What happened?” Then he said, “I was in a bad dream.”
I told him, “Brad, the dream is over. Jesus is here.”
The firefighter, who is a brand-new guy was experiencing his very first cardiac arrest, was just looking at me and I was looking at Brad.
I said, “This really worked. Jesus you are here.”
There was a tangible presence of the Holy Spirit when all of this happened. The lights did not get brighter like we think they should—but it was His presence.
I said, “Brad, we’re pulling into the hospital right now.”
“What happened? What happened?” he asked.
I told him, “Your heart stopped, you had a massive heart attack. We are working on things.” As we stopped in front of ER, they came out expecting to open the ambulance doors to see a “Dead on Arrival”, which is typical for a cardiac arrest call.
Instead, they were shocked when they saw and heard Brad trying to sit up, arguing with me there was nothing wrong with him and why is he here. Brad had sat up, recognized me and called me by my name! He went from no brain activity to recognizing me standing in front of him. That’s absolutely a 100 percent miracle. That just does not happen.
In the ER, I gave them my report of the medicines we had given him. I reported he had been given twenty-six to twenty-eight minutes of CPR. To wake up with this kind of cognitive response is unheard of.
A doctor asked me, “Is there anything else you can tell me?”
I said, “Well, we prayed for him and he woke up.” He looked at me with a strange look. I am used to that because I have had other things happen in my experience with faith—people who have had strokes walking out after we prayed for them. The doctors were like, whatever, but I knew it was God.
I just kept saying, “Relax, Brad.” It was like he could not imagine where he was. I cannot imagine having a bad dream, then finding yourself in the ER where these strange people are sticking things inside of you.
So, I said, “Jesus is here. It is okay, Brad. Relax.”
The doctor asked, “You know this guy?”
“Yes, he is a mentor of mine in the spiritual world. I started praying with him in 2007.”
As Christians, we talk about doing the stuff, healing the sick, raising the dead, and casting out demons—the stuff the Bible talks about. I have seen this happen—I have had a few other cardiac arrests and seen people wake up, but they have all been much younger, and not as long without a pulse.
I have always said, “I want to see somebody raised from the dead that I didn’t have anything to do with.” This was the closest I have ever come to a Lazarus experience.
I have love and respect for Brad. He is a spiritual mentor; he has always been a beacon of hope. His intercession has power. The gift that God has given him is incredible.
I got back to the ambulance and collapsed in tears thinking about how Jesus is so amazing. There was this overwhelming presence that everything was going to be okay. I know Brad is alive today because of God. That is it. I was thinking my name was going to forever be associated with Brad Tuttle’s death, and what an honor it was to be the last person who got to pray with him. But I did not want that to happen.
I talked with the ambulance driver and the cardiologist that night and found out Brad had massive blockages in his heart. You do not have 90 percent blockage in one artery and 100 percent in another artery and walk out of the hospital—this just does not happen. There is only one person who can take any credit, and it is Jesus. There is no other story. Period.
Brad’s Story, Part 2:
As soon as ambulances, two sheriff’s cars, and a fire truck pulled up in front of our house, our neighbor messaged our daughter: “Something is wrong at your parent’s home. You had better get over here quick!”
Juneal also had called our daughter, Christine, and her husband, Cameron, and told them, “Dad is dead. Come over now.” On their way to our home, Juneal called her back and told her, “He is alive! Meet us at the hospital.”
While the county sheriff was driving Juneal to the hospital, our daughter called her to let her know that I had not arrived at the emergency room. She asked, “Did Dad die on the way?”
Once I arrived at the hospital, they took me to the emergency room to be quickly examined by the on-duty cardiologist, who then met with Juneal, Christine and Cameron, and some pastors that my wife had called. The cardiologist did not look too hopeful when he told Juneal, “Your husband had heart failure and his condition is very serious.
When the cardiologist came out of the surgery, he explained he had put a stent in my circulator artery behind my heart. Juneal said he was more positive and told them, “Everything went well. It looks like he is going to make it.”
I was then moved to the ICU and kept on a ventilator and in a drug-induced coma for three days. My kidneys and liver were failing from lack of oxygen for so long. I had swallowed vomit and my lungs was aspirated and in danger with a 103 temperature they could not get down. They also could not stabilize my blood pressure. Juneal had prayer warriors praying specific prayers to dry up the infection, bring down my temperature, and bring up my blood pressure. God is the God of detail who created us and He answers specific prayers.
Another miracle is our oldest daughter Michelle, who lives in Arizona, drove to the airport as soon as Juneal called her. When she arrived at the airport, she saw a plane loading that was heading to Denver. She walked up to the counter, told them the story, received a ticket and hurried up the jetway onto the plane. She arrived at the hospital right after I had been moved to ICU. But God!
During this time, Juneal sat looking at the five or six machines hooked to me, wondering Did we save a body, but not a brain? Then she wondered, Will I have to give the OK to take Brad off the ventilator? Then the Lord showed her that I was like Lazarus while in ICU. Each time the intercessors prayed; graveclothes would fall off of me as I walked out of the grave.
When not praying, she was busy texting friends, pastors, and intercessors all across the land and in several countries asking them to pray persistently and passionately for me. She had the wherewithal and focus to grab my cellphone on the way out of the house which has the numbers of hundreds of friends, pastors, and intercessors.
One of her texts went to a dear pastor friend of mine who happened to be at a large prayer meeting with a couple of hundred pastors, leaders, and intercessors attending. He stood up and announced what had happened to me and that they should all stop and pray. They did, taking turns standing up and praying out loud for me and my family. A few days later, at a prayer breakfast, which I was to MC, people prayed out that our great Healer in heaven would intervene and completely heal me. Oh, thank Jesus for praying saints of God.
This is another example of our loving Father’s mercy and grace on my family and me. Jesus is our peace. That peace pervaded Juneal is such a way that she could keep her senses and be directed by the Holy Spirit on what to do and when. He is our Guide, our Advocate, who speaks to us and leads us. Our God never fails—as He is always faithful—even when we are faithless. It is not our strength, it is not our mental capabilities or natural abilities, it is not luck, it is not because we are deserving, it is God’s unfailing love and grace being poured out on His children.
The extubation is always stressful for everyone as they are all concerned whether the patient will resume breathing on his own or not. The day they were to do mine, Juneal was in the room and told the doctor who was watching the machine as the tube was being removed that there was a friend of mine out in the parking lot blowing the shofar for me, that I would breathe on my own. He turned and with tears in his eyes and a broken-up voice said, “I wish he would come and blow it every time we had an extubation!”
Wow, we just do not know what will touch a person, so we just keep sharing what is on our heart and watch Jesus move.
The last day or two I was in the hospital, the staff noticed I had started walking the halls of the hospital with a walker and oxygen tank. It was decided that if I could do that, I should be transferred to a rehabilitation hospital. By then, I was slowly getting my mind back from all the powerful drugs they had me on while I was on the ventilator. Finally, I somewhat knew what I was doing and where I was going.
The drugs so impacted me that I remembered nothing of the people who were continually coming in to pray for me and anoint me, or the ones who brought me a favorite meal, snacks, and ice tea. Two warrior women of God anointed me, declared total healing, and softly blew a shofar over me and I do not remember it. These two mighty women kept calling each other all hours of the day and night to declare a word that the Lord had given them for me.
So many people were coming to pray for me that the hospital staff finally limited my visitors to family only. Our two daughters and husbands took turns sitting by me. Our four grandchildren, three of them from out of state, came to spend time with me. Once I had my mind back, I did not believe they had been there until Juneal showed me a picture of them around my bed in ICU.
While I was on the hospital’s cardiac floor, the Lord showed Juneal the intercessors who were praying were like Aaron and Hur holding up the arms of Moses. They were holding up my arms until the battle was won over death and I walked out of the hospital.
Very early on the day I was to be released from the hospital, I woke up with such a spirit of joy and celebration that it absolutely overwhelmed me. A song came to my heart and I started humming a tune I did not recognize. I could hardly talk or sing as being intubated damaged my right vocal cord. I then texted out the following to a multitude of people: “Good News morning update!!! I have been smiling (laughing out loud) to myself all morning long since around 1:50 this a.m. King Jesus is such a hoot!!!!! We must share His Very, Very, Very Good News Far and Wide!!!”
Just then, a young lady came in smiling and singing with a blue duster in her hand. I noticed the tune she was singing was the one I had been humming. I wondered who it was as no one in a cardiac ward smiles or sings. They are all busier than bees running from emergency to emergency with buzzers going off at all hours. I have no idea when and how they eat or how they function as they do. As I watched the young lady go across the room apparently dusting things, I noticed she was not walking but floating across the room singing and cleaning. It finally dawned on me this was not a hospital staffer, but an angel! Then she instantly disappeared. Oh, the power of joyful exuberant praise! Praise changes us and changes events. How can we not jubilantly praise our Jesus every day of our lives?
My brother Steve, his daughter and his granddaughter from Alabama had arrived the day before and assisted in me being transferred to a rehabilitation hospital where I was to begin physical, occupational, and speech/cognitive brain therapy (I was diagnosed with an Anoxic Brain Injury due to lack of oxygen to my brain for so long). On the second day there, I heard the Holy Spirit tell me, You are here to demonstrate My love to all the staff and patients. It made a dramatic shift in my attitude from where I had recently been because it was hard to comprehend that I was even sick and should be in the hospital.
Because of the drugs I was taking, I could not truly understand why I was in the rehab hospital; I was not a happy camper. But then God showed me that even in my weakness, I was to step out in love and glorify Him. I started smiling and talking with everyone I met or saw. I welcomed the staff into my room and thanked them when they left. When I was wheeled down the hall on the way to the dining hall or physical therapy, I would smile at everyone I would pass by—and of course, I was greeted with a smile back. Interesting how that works.
In the dining hall, I thanked the servers and helpers, and I always tried to be wheeled to a different table to visit and love on different patients.
I could not help but notice how all the staff, nurses, and doctors really cared about those they were serving. The nurses would push their computers on wheeled carts from one table to the next giving patients their medicine and would actually caringly communicate with them and ask them how they were feeling. They demonstrated true concern, compassion, and care. I would walk by rooms and would notice certified patient technicians gently touching patients, taking notice of how they were actually doing, and always with a smile on their faces as if it was coming from their hearts. All the staff always greeted us in the hallways. It reminded me of the Broadmoor Hotel.
The same went for everyone in the therapy department—physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech. I noticed true devotion and tenderness as they dealt softly with their patients. They would talk with them, and encourage them. I could see in their eyes that this was not just a job; they were putting their whole hearts into serving them. Some patients had a tough road in front of them and it was slow and cautious going, but that was when the therapists would really pour out their hearts and expertise for them. They demonstrated real protection, support, and motherly or fatherly love and care.
I was so struck by the kindness all the staff demonstrated toward everyone that on several occasions, I asked them, “Do you have to pass a ‘kindness’ exam before you are hired?” They really did not grasp why I was asking this question as it truly was their second nature. I kept thanking Jesus for supernaturally bestowing the spirit of kindness on all the staff.
Kindness is one of the fruits of the Spirit that I have been lacking in displaying to a hurting, hardened, and confused world. God convicted me this needs to change in my life if I truly want to impact people’s lives as I was impacted by my time at the rehab hospital.
With God’s hand and the kind of wonderful care I was given, in only eight days I had graduated from being on oxygen, wheeled in a wheelchair, to walking with a walker, and to walking on my own. I walked out of the rehab hospital on my own only because of the power of God and His miracles! In just seventeen days I had gone from being dead on the floor of our house to going home.
When I asked the doctor at the rehab hospital if I could go home and come back for therapy as an outpatient, she looked at my case history on her computer and then looked up at me standing in front of her healthy as a horse. I can imagine her brain was confused and she may have been asking herself, How can this be? He died seventeen days ago; now he wants to go home!
I had excellent care. I am super blessed beyond measure with a wife who tenaciously acted quickly, who prayed instead of panicking, was able to activate thousands of people to pray for a miracle, but God had the final say. It was Father’s gracious heart of compassion that changed everything. I would not want to live a day without His grace and mercy, His goodness that never ends. His love that never fails. How can we not bow down in awe and wonder, and worship the faithful One, who passionately and radically loves us and lives forever?
Two months after I died, we had an appointment with the cardiologist who did my surgery. He was quite surprised to see me walking in so healthy and happy, looking as strong as a much younger man. After I thanked him for all he had done for my family and me, and gave praise to Jesus, I asked him when I could get off some medications. He explained the medicines were necessary due to my heart attack and cardiac arrest. But he said, “We could consider revaluating your prescriptions once we have an echocardiogram to check what the ejection fraction is” (what percentage the heart is pumping). An echocardiogram was scheduled for the very next day.
A couple days later, much to my surprise, the cardiologist himself called and informed me my heart was pumping double what it was when I was in the ICU. He said the normal heart has an ejection fraction of between 50 percent to 70 percent. No one’s heart pumps at 100 percent. The cardiologist told me that my first echocardiogram in the ICU was between 20 percent to 25 percent. Now it was at 45 percent to 50 percent! There was excitement in his voice as if it was obvious this was a miracle and he knew it.
Think about this—my ejection fraction may have been at 45 to 50 percent before I even left the hospital—we do not know for sure because a test was not performed for two months. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is too difficult for our great God in Heaven who loves us and truly enjoys pouring out His goodness upon His children.
Since my awakening and release from the rehab hospital, I have had many divine opportunities to share the testimony of the goodness of God in my life.
The other day, I walked into a hardware store in need of something. As I was walking down the aisle, I met a clerk who asked me if she could help. I looked at all the items on both sides of the aisle, and for a second forgot what I needed. I then apologized to the clerk and said, “Give me a minute. I died two months ago, and I have to remember why I am here.”
She said, “What did you say?”
And I then shared God’s redeeming love story He bestowed on me and my family by raising me from the dead.
I have learned we are not sharing our testimonies enough. The world is hungry for true God stories, and stories of what He is doing in lives. Many are hopeless because this world offers no hope to them. Others have lost hope and are desperately wanting and needing us to speak up and share Jesus with them. They really are hungry for someone to provide them with something or someone they can put their hope in. We can introduce them to the anchor of our hope—Jesus.
This last week, I walked in our local post office to mail a package and the office side was closed. I said, “Good morning,” to a person who was retrieving his mail.
He said, “Good morning.”
Then I said, “It is a really good morning if you were dead and are now alive!”
He stopped in his tracks and asked, “What did you say?”
I proceeded to share with him what Jesus just did in my life. He was really interested and asked what caused the heart attack. I told him I have a good strong heart, but low HDL caused a plaque build-up and therefore blocked a main artery to my heart.
His eyes got big and said he had low HDL also.
I gladly shared with him that Jesus is the answer. It really is as simple as just being available and looking for, listening for, and taking the opportunities He gives us to share our testimony.
Later that same day, I went back to the post office to mail that package and was waiting in line when an older lady looked down and noticed trash on the floor. I leaned over, picked it up, and dropped it in the trash receptacle next to her.
She said, “This younger generation just does not care about things like that.”
At first, I agreed with her, then stopped and caught myself and replied loudly, so all could hear, “I am so glad to be alive, as I died two months ago!”
The three clerks behind the counter and all six or seven people in line turned to me with eyes wide open and listening ears, as I shared a short testimony of what happened and how God brought me back to life! Oh, hallelujah!
Just the other day, the trash truck came by and I ran out to meet the driver and told him I had died. He shut off his truck and attentively listened to my testimony.
Recently, we had a mother and daughter, who own a pest control business, treat our home. They worked hard and fast and were backing out of our driveway, when Juneal told me to run out and give them this book. Later in the day, they called all excited sharing that the mother read it out loud to her daughter who was driving and they both were overwhelmed with gratitude and amazement of this wonderful miracle.
A while back, we stopped by a coffee shop and Juneal went in to get something. I noticed through the large glass windows two teen-age girls and four teen-age boys talking with books on their table. I looked closer and saw they were Bibles. When Juneal came back, and we drove off, I told her what I had seen. Then I said, “I should have walked in there and shared a short testimony.”
Juneal agreed with me. I turned the car around, drove back to the coffee shop, walked in, and placed one hand on a boy’s shoulder and another on a girl’s shoulder, and asked, “Can I share a ‘God story’ with you?”
To which they replied, “Yes.” So I did.
We touch lives when we respond to those nudges of the Holy Spirit. It is more than we will touch if we walk off and do not respond — but wish we had.
A Cardiologist from another city heard my story and reached out to me to inform me that he has been a cardiologist for 31 years and has never seen someone go that long without a pulse and have favorable results.
That I am alive and well is not due to me being in good health, the right genes, or being in the right time and place. No, it is only due to our merciful and faithful Jesus who miraculously raised me from the dead after no oxygen to my brain and organs for about twenty-eight minutes. I can walk, write, work out in my yard, and carry on a conversation after being dead for twenty-eight minutes because of the power of God that He demonstrated for all to see and hear.
By His grace, and only by His grace, I share my testimony to all who I come near. It is His testimony of His great goodness, His ever-enduring faithfulness, His unlimited power, and His never-failing love.
Jesus still answers prayers, just like in the Bible, and is still in the business of performing miracles all over the land. Only believe.
With a God like ours – who hears our prayers and saves our souls, who has dominion over life and power over death,
HOW CAN WE NOT WORSHIP HIM?
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