JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Norman Anthony says he will be celebrating a calm and happy new year. By all medical accounts, the odds were stacked against him. Yet, as the 2025 holiday season draws to a close, Anthony and his wife, Terry, are calling his survival nothing short of a “Christmas miracle.”
The ordeal began in the early morning hours of December 8. Norman awoke at 2:00 a.m., gripped by a physical sensation he couldn’t ignore.
“I woke up in a dripping cold sweat,” Norman recalled. “My skin was like ice.”
Sensing the gravity of the situation, he searched his symptoms online and immediately woke his wife. They rushed to the UF Health Emergency Room & Urgent Care – Baymeadows, a decision that would ultimately save his life.
Upon arrival, clinicians determined Norman was suffering from a “Widow-Maker”—a total blockage of the left anterior descending artery. This vessel provides 50% of the heart’s blood supply; a total obstruction is frequently fatal.
The situation turned dire within minutes of his arrival.
“He actually coded,” said Echo Klitz, clinical manager at the UF Health Baymeadows facility. “He flatlined; his heart stopped beating.”
As medical staff swarmed the room, using a defibrillator three times to shock Norman’s heart back to life, his wife, Terry Anthony, could only lean on her faith.
“I was just praying hard that he would be able to pull this through somehow,” she said.
The rapid response of the ER team stabilized Norman long enough for him to be transported to UF Health’s downtown hospital for advanced care. In a testament to the speed of the intervention, he was back on his feet by that same day.
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This week, the Anthonys returned to the Baymeadows facility—not as patients in crisis, but as a family full of gratitude. They thanked the team that snatched Norman from the brink of death.
“To have him standing here smiling, looking at us and being able to celebrate with the family... you’re never going to be able to fully quantify what that means to you and everyone around you,” said Dr. Ryan Hebel, a UF Health emergency medicine physician.
Reflecting on the experience, Norman Anthony issued a plea to the public to recognize the warning signs of cardiac distress, such as chest pain, sweating, and vomiting.
“If you have any kind of symptoms that you’re not sure about, don’t hesitate,” Anthony said. “If we had hesitated, it would have been a totally different outcome.”
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