Last summer David Rhoads, Jr. and his son, Jonathan, were completing an outdoor job on their five-acre patch of land near San Marcos. “Dad runs circles around me,” Jonathan said. “He always has a project going on.”

Suddenly, David experienced a familiar aching and burning sensation in the back of his neck. The symptoms mirrored a past cardiac event that resulted in several stents. He hoped the danger signs would fade with a nap, but his wife, Rebecca Rhoads, didn’t want to wait. “I just said, ‘Let’s go,’” she recalls. 

The Rhoads family lives miles down a rocky dirt road beyond a few locked gates.

 

“I knew we could get to the hospital quicker than an ambulance could get to us,” she said.

 

Jonathan drove as fast as he could, weaving in and out of traffic to bring his father to the Central Texas Medical Center Emergency Room in San Marcos.

David admitted, “A lot of times when you go to the ER, you dread having to wait, and this wasn’t the case. They took me immediately into the room and did an EKG.”

Dr. Anthony Cedrone, CTMC’s interventional cardiologist, entered the room to tell the Rhoads family that David’s electrocardiogram was not normal.

“He told us, ‘I think you’re having a…’ and before he could finish his sentence my dad flat-lined,” Jonathan said. “I couldn’t believe what I just saw. I didn’t think that would ever happen in front of me.”

 

Jonathan recalls a swarm of doctors and nurses rushing to his father’s aid for shock compressions.

“Watching the staff and how they took care of him, I knew that he would be okay,” Jonathan said. “I knew that he was going to come back. I had faith in everything that was going on.”

CTMC’s emergency medical team was able to stabilize David, and Dr. Cedrone put two stents in his heart. 

Dr. Cedrone sat down with Rebecca, Jonathan and David’s oldest son, David III, to explain Mr. Rhoads’ condition.

 

“He went the extra mile which did a lot for me because I’m very visual,” David III said.

“I couldn’t ask for a more considerate person than Dr. Cedrone,” said David Jr.’s sister, Mary Routh, who also rushed to the hospital as soon as she heard the news about her brother. “We are family, and we are glad that CTMC is here to take care of us.”

Dr. Cedrone said the goal of CTMC’s cardiology program is to provide the highest level of cardiac care for the local community.

 

“That’s really invaluable since patients can stay close to home, and their families can stay close to home, too,” he said. 

Although David wasn’t aware of CTMC’s Heart Center at the time of his heart attack, David calls the technology a blessing.

 

“There are times that I’ve heard, ‘Go to Austin,’ but that’s really not the case,” David Jr. said. “This is a good, good facility. The quality of care I got I would say is as good as anywhere I could have gone. I’m glad to know they’re here.”