Program helps Georgia heart attack survivor get more active

SNELLVILLE, Ga. - Eddie Payne is working out again, at Piedmont Eastside Medical Center Cardiac Rehabilitation Center in Snellville, Georgia.

As a handful of heart patient move from one fitness machine to another, they play trivia with the staff.

"They keep you motivated," Payne says "They keep you laughing."

The 70-year-old is working out with five or six other patients, watched over by registered nurse Kisha Arscott and exercise physiologist Nadine Bristol.

"Cardiac rehab is for any patient that's had any type of cardiac event, whether there's a heart transplant, bypass surgery, stents placed, anything like that," Bristol explains.

Eddie Payne, pictured with his wife Robin, is undergoing cardiac rehabilitation after a major heart attack February 13, 2023.

Payne's cardiac event began February 13, 2023, as he and his wife of 33 years, Robin, were getting up.

"You know, it's one of those things that I see God's fingerprints all over that morning," Robin Payne says.

Eddie Payne felt a strange pain in his chest, not terrible but not normal.

"Sort of like indigestion," Payne says.  "Just unusual. It wouldn't go away."

So, his wife checked his blood pressure.

"And, his blood pressure was 207/127," Robin Payne says. "And I said, 'Get dressed. We are headed to the hospital.'"

At Piedmont Eastside Medical Center, the Paynes say, the team moved quickly.

"They took him right back," his wife says.  "They didn't waste any time. They got to working on him. And the doctor very quickly said, 'This is a STEMI heart attack.'"

A major artery in Eddie's heart was blocked.

He needed an emergency procedure to reopen the blood flow and stop the damage to his heart muscle.  

"The doctor said to me, when he came back out, he said, "We've put a stent in. His coronary artery was 100% blocked.' And, he said, 'If he had laid down, he would have died.'"

But Payne says, doctors assured him if he had any damage, it was minimal.

His doctors recommended he undergo 12 weeks of cardiac rehab, 3 sessions a week for about 90 minutes at a time.

Kisha Arscott checks in with Eddie and the others as they rotate from one machine to another.

"Each patient that comes in is put on a heart monitor, and we have a computer that we can use to monitor their rhythm," Arscott says. "We also are checking blood pressures, and I'll also monitor their heart rate as well."

Payne says it was a little intimidating to start exercising again after his heart attack.

But, he says, he quickly got used to the sessions.

"And I can already, after 3 weeks, feel myself getting stronger," he says.

"He's letting us know how far he can go," Arscott says. "But that's the benefit of cardiac rehab, is that they know how far they can push themselves afterward."

The goal is for is to help patients to get and stay active.

"I think he's progressing as he should at his own pace," Bristol says.  "We're not racing against your neighbor. It's you getting better than what you were yesterday."

Eddie Payne is hoping this will jumpstart his health.

He hopes to lose some weight and find a healthier way of eating.

He this as his second chance at watching their grandchildren grow up.

And, Payne says, he is going for it.

"I really came out of this on the lucky side," he smiles.