They Thought It Was the Flu. Then His Heart Stopped Three Times.

Former Marine Bryan Little rarely gets sick.  So, when he got home from work feeling terrible, he told his wife, Tam, he was skipping that night’s church leadership Zoom meeting and going right to bed.

“I went to sleep, and when I woke up it was so hot, and I was breathing so fast I thought I was having a heat stroke. I was sweating like you wouldn't believe. I was kind of scared at that point, and I tried to climb out of bed and before I knew it, I was looking up at the ceiling.”

Bryan called out for Tam, who was attending the meeting upstairs.

‘“I started thinking nobody's going to find me on the other side of this bed in the dark. I said, ‘Jesus, help me. I don't know what's happening. Holy Spirit, help me.’ And the Lord spoke to me and he said, "Get moving, Marine." and so I turned over onto my stomach, and I started to low crawl around the other end of the bed.”

“The meeting just happened to last twenty minutes; it usually lasts about an hour,” Tam recalls. ‘“I'm walking past our bedroom, and I hear this voice saying, ‘Help.’ I was thinking, is he playing a joke on me? I went into the room, and I saw him lying on the floor and he could barely speak. He was sweating and his eyes were rolled in the back of his head. I just tried to encourage him to move. I was praying he didn't have a stroke.’”

As she dialed 911, Tam continued to pray.

‘“I was binding the spirit of death. I'm like, ‘You are gonna live and not die. You are gonna be okay.’”

By the time Bryan reached the ER, he seemed to have stabilized. Before he and Tam could relax, Bryan started to feel strange.

“The best way to describe it is like you're getting really hot and at the same time very tired, but you feel this racing that's happening.”

“‘So, I ran out and I said, ‘I need help. I need help quickly.’ His heart rate was over 200,”’ said Tam.

Bryan went into cardiac arrest. As she watched the medical team defibrillate her husband, Tam clung to her faith.

‘“In 2023, my grandmother passed and then my sister passed in 2024. I said, ‘No way. I'm not going to allow this to happen and I'm going to believe God that I will not lose the man that I have been married to for 27 years. I'm going to fight for him in prayer.’ And that's what I did.’”

Bryan’s doctors stabilized him long enough to transfer him to the University of Rochester Medical Center. After settling in, the Littles realized Bryan’s new nurse’s face was familiar.

“Many years ago, we would go into the inner city and host sidewalk Sunday schools,” Tam recalls. “‘We met a young lady, her name was Haben. We saw her and we were like, ‘Wow, it's been so long it had to be over ten, fifteen years.’”

“She says, ‘I don't care what it is. If you need something, please let me know. Just hit the little, the nurse's button,’” Bryan remembers.

“‘I said to Haben, I said, ‘Okay, just take, make sure you keep an eye on him, take care of him for me,’” says Tam.

“‘And she's like, "I got you. I'm gonna take care of him. I'm gonna watch over him."”

Brian was diagnosed with influenza a triggered ventricular tachycardia, an abnormal, life-threatening heart rhythm.

He appeared to be out of danger, so Tam went home to rest. However, during the night, Bryan went into v-tach again. He received CPR and two more defibrillator shocks.

I get a call two o'clock in the morning. I got to the hospital, and they said he was in intensive care and just seeing him hooked up to the machines. I just was crying inside because I wasn't there with him, but I know that God's timing, God had put Haben there because she is the one who found him. She saw him going into distress and so she called the doctors and they were able to have the whole team come in and help resuscitate him. God put Haben there to check on him and had she not, he would not be with us.

Soon after, he went into v-tach again. This time, when they shocked him, Bryan didn’t respond.

“I was praying the whole time,” Tam recalls. ‘“They were doing everything they could. I was at the edge of the bed and the Lord said, ‘If you call his name, he'll wake up.’ I said, "Little." And his eyes opened just a little bit, and I said it with more force, ‘Little!’ And his eyes opened up, and they said, "Oh, you got the magic." And I was like, ‘No, that's God.’ When he opened his eyes, I was so relieved. I was like, "God, oh wow! Okay." I was so happy and the doctors were happy too.’”

Bryan had no more runs of v-tach and quickly recovered. On December 23rd, less than a week after his first attack, he was discharged.

‘“God says to speak those things that are not as though they were. And so, I kept saying, ‘My husband is coming home with me. My husband is coming home with me.’ It was just so amazing and just so beautiful because I trusted God and I believed God and I spoke those words out,’” Tam proclaims.

However, Bryan’s heart function was still too low, just over twenty percent. Doctors warned him he would need an implantable defibrillator and possibly a heart transplant.

“‘That just totally shocked us and we're like, "God, we're going to believe you,’" Tam says.

Bryan agrees. ‘“I believe, ‘Lord, if you woke me up from this, if you got me through this, then I know that you're going to heal my body totally.’”

Bryan and Tam prayed for his complete healing. Later, when Bryan returned for further testing, his heart function had doubled. It has been improving ever since.

“We go through these tests for a testimony because God says we overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony. God is real and we can trust him and he loves us,” Tam declares.

“God has the perfect plan for you. Trust in the fact that he is a healer and I'm here to tell you if he can raise me from death, he can do anything.”