A true miracle: Bryan Perry’s “widow-maker” survival story

After the incredible events of March 23, 2025, Bryan Perry considers himself one of the luckiest men on Earth.

That day, the 47-year-old Silver City resident and father of five was helping at his aunt’s property in Mimbres when he started feeling strange chest pain. Out of cell service range, he drove to seek signal, but ended up passing out, careening off the road and hitting a tree – his heart had briefly stopped. When he came to, he was in bad shape but miraculously had signal, and was able to eventually find his phone and then call 911.

“Where I was at, I should not have had service,” Bryan said, still pondering how he was able to complete that call. Thankfully, sheriff’s deputies spotted where he had gone off the road, and he was eventually loaded into a helicopter near the scene of the accident for immediate transport to Memorial Medical Center and Las Cruces.

That’s when his heart stopped the second time. “On the chopper on the way down here, they lost me and brought me back,” Bryan recalled.

Waiting and ready at MMC when the helicopter landed were Interventional Cardiologist Abdul Ahad Khan, MD, FACC, FSCAI, RPVI, and Memorial’s Cath Lab team. What followed was a record 14-minute “door to balloon” time, which measures the duration between a patient's arrival at the hospital and the time the first balloon is inflated during a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).

“He saved my life. I thank god that I’m still here,” Bryan said of Dr. Khan.

A shorter door-to-balloon time is associated with better patient outcomes. “Time is heart muscle,” Dr. Khan explained. “The faster we can open an artery, the less damage there is to the heart and the lower the risk of heart failure and arrhythmias.”

With no obvious signs or symptoms of heart disease and no pertinent family history in his age range, Bryan had zero reason to think he could have a sudden heart attack. In fact, blood work completed just three weeks before the emergency didn’t raise any red flags.

As it turns out, his left anterior descending artery was nearly completely blocked. Bryan not only had a major heart attack, but one of the deadliest types, a “widow-maker.”  While Bryan did not experience any notable warning signs, his story is a cautionary one that people of all ages need to focus on their heart health. “The days of only older people having heart attacks are long gone,” Dr. Khan said.

On a recent follow-up clinic appointment at New Mexico Cardiac Care in La Cruces, Bryan and Dr. Khan played back the straight-out-of-Hollywood emergency and talked about just how lucky he was to survive. They credit and thank the heroics of the Grant County Sheriff’s Department and the helicopter team for their quick response, which gave Dr. Khan and the highly trained Memorial Cath Lab team the opportunity to intervene and administer life-saving care.

Due to the overall time it took to get him to the hospital, Bryan’s heart has a long way to go on its recovery journey; its capacity is currently significantly weakened. But a regimen of follow-up appointments, monitoring and tests, medications and cardiac rehabilitation in Silver City have him on the right path.

He and Dr. Khan hope to see more progress at Bryan’s next appointment in early July -- where they’ll again share an embrace and continue to marvel at Bryan’s miraculous survival story.