Help the Holland Family!

My best friend of 25 years and her husband Gavin are going through a very rough time after Gavin suffered a sudden cardiac arrest on August 20th. He will be out of work for at least eight weeks. Gavin is the sole provider for the family while Erica works supplemental due to her own medical issues and taking care of their children.

Gavin and Erica had just bought a house, and moving day was the Thursday after Gavin's medical event, and he was still hospitalized. Thankfully, Erica had many friends and family to help her and her family move into their new home

I'm starting a GoFundMe account for the Hollands to help with medical bills, and every day expenses while Gavin is out of work. Please help if you can; anything will help during this difficult time for this family!

Here is Erica's story of what happened....

We went to bed Saturday night like usual and at 5:00am Gavin started thrashing around in bed, sat up, grabbed his chest and moaned. He then fell out of bed.

I looked at him and asked if he was ok and he just stared at me and then laid down on the floor on his back. I thought he was playing around so I said, "Do I need to call 911?" When he did not respond I patted his cheek and said, "Gavin are you ok?" I then grabbed my phone and got on the floor next to him. I realized he was not breathing and called 911. I started CPR on him immediately and continued CPR for 10 minutes while I waited for someone to get to our house. The 1st person to show up was an Olmsted County Sheriff's Deputy. He had the AED and placed the pads on Gavin. He did not have a heart beat so he was shocked. The deputy continued CPR for another 3 minutes. Right after that the EMTs showed up and had to drag Gavin down the hall to the living room to continue working on him. He was shocked a total of 10 times and was stable enough to be transported to St. Mary's ED. On the way to the hospital they were able to feel a faint pulse, and while his heart rate was still 210, he was awake, talking and very confused as to what was going on.

He was then immediately admitted to the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, where he stayed for 3 days. The doctors did a lot of testing including a heart biopsy where they took 5 pieces of his heart. He was able to move to the step down unit on day 4, where they did more testing and inserted an Internal Cardiac Defibrillator to keep him from going into sudden Cardiac Arrest again. He was in the hospital a total of 6 days. He was diagnosed with Myocarditis, which is mild heart failure, has an internal defibrillator, and has to take heart medications for the rest of his life. Our lives all changed drastically that morning and I thank God that I wasn't able to sleep well that night so I was awakened easily. Me starting CPR immediately is what saved his life.

Gavin is going to be out of work for at least 8 weeks if everything goes well.