When a farmer’s heart stopped in the field, his 15-year-old son started CPR and helped save his life

After a full day of work at the water treatment plant, Brian Lipham returned to his farm in Alexandria, Alabama, in time to feed his animals.

Cows lingered on one side of the field, miniature horses on the other. Brian, 49, and his children, Logan, 15, and Lexi, 11, trudged down the middle, tossing grain into troughs and pans as they went. They were about halfway through when Brian collapsed.

Lexi and Logan dropped their buckets and rushed over. Logan sat his dad up and propped him against his own body. Lexi pulled out her cellphone and called their mom, Tonia, who was back at the house making Chinese food for dinner.

“Daddy fell in the field and he’s having trouble breathing,” Lexi said in a panicky voice.

Tonia was about to start cooking fried rice. She stopped and sprinted to the fields.

“He’s turning blue,” Tonia said when she saw Brian. She called 911.

Logan eased his dad back to the ground. Lessons from an eighth-grade health class Logan had taken the year before came rushing back. He and his classmates spent several weeks learning how to perform Hands-Only CPR.

Logan fell to his knees and started chest compressions on his dad.

For 10 minutes, Logan performed CPR. He felt his dad’s ribs crack beneath his hands as he pressed on his chest. Finally, an ambulance rolled into the field, scattering the animals. The cows mooed as they fled.

The first responders used a defibrillator to shock Brian and try to restore a normal heart rhythm. It didn’t work, so they restarted CPR. The process repeated until the fourth shock. Then it was off to the hospital.

Tests showed the cardiac arrest was triggered by a major heart attack. Brian’s left anterior descending artery, which supplies blood to the front of the heart, was almost totally blocked.

Tonia was stunned to learn about the blockage since Brian was healthy. He walked some 15 miles a day between his job and the farm, and he had no family history of heart issues.

The next morning, Brian went to the cardiac catheterization lab for the relatively routine procedure of doctors inserting a stent into his heart to clear the blockage. During the procedure, his heart stopped beating again. The medical team had to revive him. They put him in a medically induced coma to help his body recover from the trauma.

Two days later, doctors transferred Brian to a larger hospital that could better care for him. There, he got a temporary pacemaker, two more stents and an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) in his chest to monitor and regulate his heart rhythm.

Brian had to learn to walk again, to eat with his left hand, and to write and read. Reading remains a struggle. He left the hospital after two weeks, but continued speech therapy for a year and physical therapy for two.

“You take things for granted,” he said. “I still can’t tie my own shoes. I have to get my wife to help me get dressed. It’s a struggle.”

Because Brian’s brain was deprived of oxygen from the time his heart stopped until a normal rhythm returned, it swelled. He suffered what’s called a global anoxic brain injury. As a result, his right hand shakes and his right foot drags. He tires easily. His vision has deteriorated so severely that he’s legally blind. He’s lost some of his hearing. He has constant headaches and has a shorter temper than before.

Unable to work at the plant, Brian stays home most days. He relies on Tonia and the kids to get around. Lexi and Logan also help with a larger share of the chores on the farm.

Brian’s event occurred in 2022. Last April, doctors discovered an additional blockage that required another stent.

Still, Brian and his family appreciate the simple fact that he survived his ordeal. Life may be more challenging, but at least he’s still part of it – thanks to Logan.

“I saw my dad turning blue, and I just knew what I had to do,” Logan said. “CPR is something you need to learn and to be serious about in case you ever need to use it.”

Brian has taken to savoring life’s small things – like cartoons, especially Bugs Bunny. He enjoys rodeo broadcasts, mostly calf roping and saddle bronc riding. He goes to church and proudly sat in the audience in May for Logan’s high school graduation.

Brian still enjoys roaming the field to pet the cows and horses. Cookie, one of the farm’s eight cats, is his constant companion, walking behind him or sitting on his lap.

“I’m a rock star, a warrior,” Brian said. “I just keep going.”

Stories From the Heart chronicles the inspiring journeys of heart disease and stroke survivors, caregivers and advocates.

Logan Lipham learned CPR in school through an Alabama state law requiring this training for high school graduation. The American Heart Association is working nationwide to advance policies that expand CPR training for students. See where your state stands at cpr.heart.org, and explore more of the Association’s efforts through the Heart Powered grassroots advocacy network.