Waking up 3 days after brush with death, man meets Tennova ER doctor who saved his life

NASHVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – "I can't breathe! I can't breathe!" That's the last thing Drake Denny remembers screaming on the way to Tennova Healthcare-Clarksville before waking up three days later in Centennial Medical Center.

He soon found out that trouble breathing had led him to a brush with death, and quick thinking by an ER doctor at Tennova had led him to life-saving treatment.

"I’m grateful that he did think the way he did, because I have a 7-year-old daughter," Denny told Clarksville Now from his hospital bed. "I have a mom, a beautiful girlfriend, and a lot of family to live for. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be here."

Denny, a 25-year-old Florida resident, was working in Clarksville with a pressure washing company when he noticed he was having trouble breathing. It went on for a few days, so told his boss who responded, "The air is different here."

"I was like, OK, I guess," Denny said. "We’re in the mountains – different air."

However, on May 9, his condition worsened. Denny asked his boss to take him to the VA Medical Clinic.

The medical personnel at the VA listened to his lungs and said there was no fluid and could find nothing wrong, Denny said. The VA chalked it up to allergies, and Denny was sent back to work. He took the allergy medication but continued to feel worse as they arrived to the first job of the day.

"I was sweating like crazy and said, ‘Boss, I really can't breathe right now; I don't know what's going on,'" Denny recalled. "He said, ‘Well, don't b**** out on me.'"

But when they arrived at the second job, things went from bad to worse. Denny said he sat there and thought to himself, "I’m not getting out of this truck. I can't. I need a second. I really can't breathe."

Unable to bear it any longer, Denny called 911, and an ambulance was dispatched, arriving shortly after. As he was given oxygen and put into the ambulance, paramedics at the scene told him, "Stop freaking out. You’re talking, you can breathe."

"It was just so scary," Denny said. "Because I really couldn't breathe. I was screaming, I was trying to rip off the mask because I didn't know what to do, and the oxygen wasn't helping.

The last thing Denny remembered was screaming, "I can't f***ing breathe!"

When Denny finally came to, it was three days later, May 12, and he was lying in a hospital bed at Centennial Medical Center.

Physician Dr. Steven Merrill was working in the Tennova Healthcare-Clarksville ER when Denny was brought in.

"The paramedics had you on extra oxygen," Merrill told Denny. "When you got the emergency department, your oxygen was still low, so we put you on a bit higher. Listening to your lungs they just sounded wet. … You were breathing fast and your heart rate was up, and there were a lot of signs that you were just working to breathe."

Merrill told Clarksville Now that at Tennova, Denny was put on a BiPap machine that helped push air into his lungs. Eventually, Merrill and his team inserted a breathing tube to ensure Denny was getting consecutive oxygen, preemptively gave him antibiotics and sedated him. Unfortunately, Denny's oxygen was still dangerously low, so Merrill and the Tennova nurses administered a paralyzing medication, and Denny's oxygen levels started to rise.

At some point, Denny coded. For two and a half minutes, Merrill and the team performed CPR and shocked Denny's heart to bring him back. Denny had gone into lung and heart failure.

"I had a pamphlet in a drawer that I would always see called ECMO," Merrill said with a small laugh. "A lot of times when we need to transfer a patient, we’ll call a transfer center and tell them this is the patient's situation, and this is what we need."

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is a form of life support used for people of all ages with life-threatening heart and/or lung problems. ECMO provides time for the body to rest and recover by doing the work of the heart and lungs.

After calling, the medical personnel at Tennova found an ECMO team at Centennial and prepared Denny to be transferred by LifeFlight helicopter.

While at Centennial, Denny has made a full recovery and is back to walking.

One of the first things he wanted to do when he recovered was to meet Merrill. Denny's memory of his condition at Tennova is spotty, and he had no memory of Merrill.

When Merrill arrived, tears filled everyone's eyes as Denny stood up to hug the doctor.

"I was worried, honestly, that you were going to die," Merrill told Denny. "It's impossible for us to check up on all of our patients; there's too many patients, unfortunately, and I wish I could call every single one after the fact and say, ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ But the reality is, we unfortunately just don't have enough time. But with Drake, I was just very worried about him, I wanted to see if he was OK."

"It feels good seeing how passionate you are about what you do," Denny told Merrill through tears. "It makes me happy that you cared enough about me to keep me going."

Merrill drew him in for another hug.

"It feels amazing seeing you doing as well as you are," Merrill said to Denny. "I knew you had a daughter, talking with your mom on the phone, I knew you had a family. It's a lot, you know? And thinking that you were very close to losing all that. …"

It still hasn't been determined what caused Denny to go into heart and lung failure, or the origin of his breathing condition, but after this close brush with death, Denny is steadily recovering and should be discharged from the hospital soon to continue healing at home in Florida.

Jordan Renfro is a news reporter with ClarksvilleNow.com. Reach her by email at [email protected] or call 931-648-7720 ext. 547