Pump up the volume
Nonstop chest compressions help save fisherman’s life.
Article Author: Johnny Woodhouse
Article Date:
After his wife of 37 years passed away from dementia in 2025, Lance Schellpeper stopped taking care of himself and ignored the warning signs of an impending heart attack, including fatigue, arm weakness and shortness of breath.
A diabetic who suffered a stroke in his late 50’s, Schellpeper gained weight and stopped attending church services.
“I was mad at the world and mad at God. Losing my wife Linda was like losing all hope,” the Jacksonville Beach resident said. “I knew something was wrong with my heart, but I refused to listen to my doctor.”
No time to cut bait
Surf fishing has helped Schellpeper, a lifelong angler, cope with his wife’s passing.
This past summer, after fishing at his favorite spot near the Jacksonville Beach pier, he bent down to pet a passerby’s dog.
“I remember scratching the dog’s ears and speaking to its owner, and the next thing I know I’m waking up in an ambulance on the way to the hospital,” recalled Schellpeper, who experienced a sudden cardiac arrest, collapsing right behind his parked vehicle.
Fortunately for him, the dog’s owner happened to an experienced medical provider who assists vascular surgeons in the operating room and, most importantly, knows CPR.
“We were chit-chatting and he made this jerky movement and then fell face-first to the pavement,” said Jennifer Card, PA-C, a cardiac physician’s assistant with Cardiothoracic & Vascular Surgical Associates, PA, who treats patients at Baptist Health hospitals.
After calling 911, Card rolled the unresponsive Schellpeper onto his back, got down on her knees and started performing hands-only CPR.
“I was pushing hard and fast on his chest for like five minutes. It was go-time,” she said. “I didn’t even stop to check his pulse.”
Schellpeper fishing at his favorite spot near the Jacksonville Beach pier.
Obstacle in his path
When paramedics arrived on the scene, they shocked Schellpeper’s heart back into its normal rhythm using an automated external defibrillator (AED) and transported him to the Emergency Room at Baptist Medical Center Beaches, where he was stabilized.
Later that day, he underwent a heart catheterization at Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville. The minimally invasive procedure revealed that Schellpeper had four blocked coronary arteries, which would require coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), a major open-heart surgery, to reroute blood flow to the heart.
The next day, John “Jack” Pirris, MD, FACS, a thoracic surgeon, performed quadruple bypass surgery on Schellpeper at Baptist Jacksonville.
Imitating the real thing
Following surgery, Schellpeper spent five days in the Intensive Care Unit at Baptist Heart Hospital, where he was also diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AFib). He recently had a defibrillator surgically placed in his chest at Baptist Jacksonville’s Heart Rhythm Center to monitor his heart rhythms and help prevent another sudden cardiac arrest.
“Jenny being right there when I fell and knowing exactly what to do when my heart stopped is what saved me,” he said. “She must have used a sledgehammer on my chest because it was still sore when she came to visit me in the hospital.”
Card, who has more than a decade of operating room experience, including advanced resuscitation skills, said chest soreness is a sign of effective cardiac compressions.
“As long as you're doing strong and efficient chest compressions, you're essentially trying to mimic what the heart would be doing on its own, which is circulating a large volume of oxygen throughout the body,” she added. “And the main thing is to not stop because that could cause a rapid drop in blood flow to the brain and heart.”
Lance and his late wife, Linda, were married for 37 years.
‘It’s what my wife would want’
Six weeks after his cardiac arrest, Schellpeper returned to his favorite fishing spot on the beach and reeled in a large red bass.
He’s also shed 40 pounds and gained a new friend.
“Jenny is the reason I’m still here and I want her to get all the credit she deserves,” he said. “My whole problem was my lifestyle, but that’s all going to change. It’s what my wife would have wanted.”
The Heart Hospital at Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville has received a three-star rating from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, placing it among the elite for heart bypass surgery in the United States and Canada. To schedule an appointment with a cardiologist with Baptist Heart Specialists, call 904.720.8629.
