Vacationing Vanderbilt doctor saves a dad's life

NASHVILLE -- Dr. Rick Miller can't get away from saving lives — even on vacation.

The chief of Vanderbilt's trauma unit was on Florida's Gulf Coast last week, out beyond the breaking waves with his older daughter, when she noticed panic on the shore.

"Dad," she said. "Something's really wrong."

Propelled by his medical instinct, Miller took off swimming toward the screaming. At the same time, his wife, Karen — a retired critical care cardiac nurse — sprinted across the beach and helped pull a motionless man out of the water.

"It was crazy," Miller said. "Crazy, crazy."

Val Schaff doesn't remember the part when his blue, pulse-less body was dragged onto the shore by strangers. By then he had been unconscious for several minutes.

What the 55-year-old, father-of-three does recall is wading into the water with his kids' boogie board and climbing on. He remembers the wave that smacked him and his body being whisked over his neck, his head crushed into the sand below the water.

And then, nothing.

"I could not move my limbs," Schaff said. "All I tried to do is hold my breath."

The next minute, he was found floating in the water face down.

When Miller made it to the shore, Schaff wasn't breathing. As a trained emergency professional, Miller keeps people alive every day. But that's in a hospital with millions of dollars in advanced medical equipment at his disposal.

This man had been submerged in the water, unable to move, and was drowning. CPR was the only option. So Rick and Karen Miller took turns delivering compressions and rescue breaths, attempting to restart Schaff's heart.

Nearby, Schaff's wife, Joni, and their 17-year-old son watched.

"I was getting hysterical," Joni Schaff recalled. "My son looked at me, grabbed my shoulders and said, 'Pray, Mama. You've got to pray.'"

And so she did, starting with the Our Father.

A lifeguard arrived from down shore with an intubation kit, and the Miller's younger daughter went out to the street to call 911 and lead the cops and paramedics to the beach. The Millers sparked a pulse and Schaff began to spit up foamy sea water, lots of it. But he still wasn't moving.

When the emergency vehicles arrived, they couldn't access the beach, so someone drove a pickup to the shore and five others put Schaff in the back and drove him away.

"It was like 10 trauma alerts in a row," Miller said. "I was sure he was dead."

But on this day, there was good news. This time, two dads on family vacations in Florida intersected at the right time. One saved the other's life, giving him another Father's Day with his wife and three children.

And, earlier this week, when the two men spoke by phone, they acknowledged that together.

Schaff, who lives in New Orleans, eventually awoke in Sacred Heart trauma unit in Pensacola, Fla., — where, barely able to move, he mouthed over and over again to his wife "I'm paralyzed."

For a while, doctors did advise that could be the case. But Schaff was transferred to Shepherd Center, a spinal cord and brain injury rehabilitation location in Atlanta, where he has since regained some control of his limbs. Tests and time will show if he retains full brain function, but he happily is testing out his legs.

"Val just fought," his wife, Joni, said. And he knows it was the Millers who gave him that chance.

"All I could tell Dr. Miller was thank you," Val said. "'I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you. I didn't have that many more minutes to live.'"

But additional minutes is what Miller gives every day in the hospital. And for this dad on a beach vacation, he wanted the same.

When the two talked about it, Miller said, "We all just cried together."