DALLAS – A Dallas police officer is back home two weeks after doctors declared him dead. It's a second shot at life, made possible thanks to his bike patrol partner and a good Samaritan.
"It's a miracle," said Senior Corporal Jimmy Thongrivong in a news conference at Baylor University Medical Center Thursday. "It's a miracle to escape from death."
It's a remarkable story of survival proving the unbreakable bond of brothers on a police force.
"I've been in a fight over my gun, I've been shot at, and this is No. 1, by far," Lt. Ernest Sherman said. "This got way on a personal level, too."
He's lucky to have his partner by his side again. The pair were patrolling the Sante Fee Trail on bike two weeks ago when Thongrivong suffered a heart attack.
"Next thing I know is, he's off in the grass," Sherman said.
Sherman, whose wife is a paramedic, started administering CPR. Seconds later, a woman who lives nearby saw what was happening, hopped her fence, and helped, too.
"She really saved the day," Sherman said.
"I just got tunnel-focused," Jennifer Bowdler said.
It was that teamwork before paramedics arrived that doctors say saved the 56-year-old.
"He had blockages in all of his three major arteries," Dr. James Choi said.
He said Thongrivong wasn't even living.
"He's dead," Choi said. "He's really dead, [and] he's fully supported on a ventilator."
Through the power of medicine and - in Thongrivong's mind - a miracle, he bounced back.
"I look at myself in the mirror as a very fit person," he said. "Not anymore, so I'm just going to do everything I can to protect this second chance that I have."
A second chance he also shares with his son, a Fort Worth police officer.
He, too, skirted death the same week Thongrivong collapsed.
He was working an accident on a freeway when a pickup truck slammed into his parked squad car. Three firefighters were hurt.
"He said, 'Dad, I was just in a close call,'" Thongrivong said.
If there's one thing his family shows, it's that they beat the odds.
"Christmas must be coming early for the Thongrivong family," the bike patrol officer said with a smile.
