My heart story really began in 2011. Despite the fact that I have been an athlete and ate healthily my entire life, at age 49 my left anterior descending artery – known as the widow maker – was fully blocked and required a stent.
I attended cardiac rehab and continued to be active by swimming and even joined a triathlon team. Despite doing well and being active for the next 11 years, my heart story wasn’t finished.
In October 2022, I went to the emergency room complaining of vertigo. I had a slower than normal heartbeat, known as bradycardia, and was eventually diagnosed with sick sinus syndrome. Months later I received a pacemaker. After the procedure I developed complications and decided to repeat cardiac rehab. Within a few months I started to feel really good again about my health.
Two years later in October 2024 I traveled to upstate New York to participate in a 42-mile charity bicycle ride. I felt prepared and was close to finishing the ride, but fate had another plan for me.
I was about 10 miles from the finish line at the 32-mile mark after summiting the longest hill on the course and began feeling ill. I remember being alone as I plateaued out after the summit. I felt a quick onset of chest pain and left elbow pain and tightness. That’s where I really became ill. I had fallen behind and recall seeing a bystander sitting in a lawn chair on the side of the road where there was also a pickup truck. This man was a volunteer bike mechanic and the first of many responders, guardian angels that day. I pulled over and asked him for help.
Patrick Raycraft is cycling in the red and white jersey after the start of the East Aurora to Ellicottville charity cycling event in New York State on October 5, 2024. This is about an hour before Raycraft suffered a massive heart attack and cardiac arrest. He was airlifted to Buffalo, New York. Photograph by Tim Frank
The next thing I recall I was sitting down at the Ashford Community Center and briefly texting with my girlfriend who was cycling ahead of me before I fell ill. She asked me where I was and if I was OK. A cardiac nurse, a fellow cyclist, came to my side and introduced herself. We still don’t know who she is, but she was another guardian angel. My girlfriend, a physician, was also now at my side. But I don’t remember her or much else from that day.
I’m told after being loaded into an ambulance that I reported feeling better. That’s the moment I went into cardiac arrest due to ventricular fibrillation which I learned is a very dangerous and often fatal rapid heart rhythm. First responders including an EMT named Heather performed CPR and shocked my heart nine times while being transported by ambulance to a local hospital.
The next thing I recall from that day is waking up in a helicopter. We were banking to the left and I had a great view out the side of the chopper. I love to fly. In those 5 to 7 seconds, I recall seeing a crew member dressed in an orange flight suit at the foot of my stretcher.
I woke up in the Cardiovascular ICU the next morning in Buffalo, New York. I’ve woken up in a lot of strange places in my life but never in a helicopter or in the ICU.
Recovering in the Cardiovascular ICU in Buffalo in October 2024. Raycraft spent 16 days in the hospital. Photograph Courtesy of Patrick Raycraft
It was determined I had a STEMI which is an acronym for a severe type of heart attack where my major artery supplying blood was blocked and I was in cardiogenic shock. So, they implanted a temporary heart pump called the Impella device in my left ventricle and placed a stent in the same proximal LAD location from 13 years prior. After four days of support in the ICU, my heart function improved, and the Impella heart pump was weaned and removed. Two weeks later, I returned home to Connecticut.
My memory is still foggy from that time. My Strava app recorded the whole day including my bike ride, my pickup truck ride back to the community center, the ambulance ride where we rendezvoused with an advanced life support ambulance that administered the 9 shocks to me over a 15- or 20-minute period.
As for my pacemaker, the device began to malfunction during my first day in the Cardiovascular ICU due to the CPR chest compressions I received. My heart rhythm was stabilized and after 16 days I was sent home from Buffalo with a life-vest defibrillator that I wore for 30 days. During this time, I developed chest pain again and spent another 10 days hospitalized in Connecticut being evaluated and tested. It was determined that my pacemaker continued to malfunction and needed to be replaced. The device and the lead wires were extracted, and I was given a new pacemaker with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator.
This really happened to me. But my experience does not define who I am. It definitely shapes my thoughts and actions. I have heart disease, but I don’t see myself as a sick person. It was a temporary setback. Doctors say I’ve made a remarkable recovery. I completed the remaining 10 miles of the charity bike event on April 5, 2025, the six-month anniversary of my heart attack and cardiac arrest. It was a life-affirming event for me and others. Yes, a real comeback. In many ways I’m still the same Patrick Raycraft as I was on the morning of October 5. I get impatient at red lights. I make a mess in my kitchen. I deal with challenging clients. I don’t want to get out of bed to go to cardiac rehab.
I received immense help that day under extremely difficult & challenging circumstances. My chances of survival were less than 10 percent. I have received so much and now it’s my turn to give back. I have learned that feeling the full effect and impact of being a recipient of a new life is amplified by and directly proportional to giving back hope and compassion to the world in small daily doses, for example, like while driving my vehicle. In the words of one of my mentors, “The more you give the more you get.” So, I am sharing my story so others may learn and live.
To close I would like to share one of my favorite quotes by Mark Twain. “Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live.”
Patrick Raycraft
The American Heart Association would like to thank Patrick Raycraft for recently sharing his heart story at our 2025 Greater Hartford CycleNation. Patrick also cycled at the event supporting the mission to fight heart disease and stroke.
Below: 2025 CycleNation at the Mandell JCC of Greater Hartford in West Hartford, CT. Participants including Patrick Raycraft raised awareness and funds to support American Heart Association research and education for cardiovascular diseases.
