Veteran Declared ‘Clinically Dead’ Wakes Up

A Wisconsin veteran declared clinically dead surprised his doctors and his family members when he awoke the next day, and now he and his family are sharing his story of resilience.

Sergeant First Class Jim Bittner, who served in the Wisconsin Army National Guard for 32 years and six months, had been scheduled to undergo a specialized surgery to clean out plaques building up in his lungs and arteries.

But Bitter had several health scares which required him to put off the surgery or cancel it altogether.

“I was having shortness of breath, and I started coughing up blood,” Bittner told WTMJ.

The Wisconsin veteran went to the emergency room, but doctors quickly determined he needed to receive more specialized care at a facility near Milwaukee. Medics flew him by helicopter to Froedtert Hospital, where his body went into cardiac arrest.

“His heart did not beat just over three minutes,” said Mary Bittner, Jim’s wife.

Dr. Lyle Joyce, Bitter’s heart surgeon, put her patient on life support thinking he had a slim chance of recovery.

“This would at least give him a chance to say goodbye to his family,” Joyce said.

But to everyone’s amazement, Bittner woke up the next day ready to conquer the world. Doctors performed heart surgery on the veteran, and released him from the hospital several weeks early.

Bittner is now back home with his family, thankful to spend the next holiday season among family.

The veteran’s doctors say that he gained his resilience to survive through his storied military career.

“There is no question that his military service prepared him for the type of resilience that he needed to survive this situation,” said Dr. David Joyce, who operated on Bittner with his father, Dr. Lyle.

This is not the first medical miracle to make the news this week. Breitbart News reported Saturday that a patient’s brain tumor vanished shortly before his surgery, astounding the doctors in charge of treating him.