As CEO of Alpha Polymers, a manufacturer of spray foam insulation, Jim Peavey’s job has him on the road 260 days a year. Those mornings when he is home, he always—always—leaves his and wife Carey’s home on Fleetwood Drive by 7 a.m. at the latest. Had he done so as usual on the cold morning of Jan. 30, 2026, I would have died right in front of his home.
Even then, as he got into his truck in the driveway at 7:45 a.m. that morning, there was no reason to wait on me. I was on my morning walk and had just crossed Mays Street. I was still 30 to 40 seconds away from Peavey’s driveway. He should have easily backed out and taken off for his office on South Washington.
As the group Alabama first sang in 1993, there are angels among us, and Jim Peavey, 55, a man I’d never met, is mine. On what began as just another Friday morning for both of us, Peavey listened to God’s whisper and did not ignore His gentle nudge. Because of that, neither one of us will ever be the same.
For the first time in his four years living on Fleetwood Drive, Peavey was still home at 7:45 a.m. Wearing a blue Texas Rangers World Series hoodie and a Kansas City Chiefs stocking cap, I walked toward Peavey’s home after having run two blocks just as the sun rose. I had felt great since quadruple bypass heart surgery nearly a year earlier in February 2025.
Until that moment. At a quarter before 8 a.m., steps away from Peavey’s truck, I went into electrical arrhythmia. I went down. I was dying. Every second was critical. An empty block of people and traffic at that early hour would have been fatal to me. So there was my angel, sitting in his black Ford F-150 truck at a time he never should have, waiting for me.
“I accept that,” Peavey says. “I was there for you that morning. My biggest hurdle in all this is I didn’t know why. Sometimes you don’t have to know why. A good buddy told me you may never know why. We don’t have to have a clear understanding. But when you live a certain way and believe in certain things, it’s easy to accept for me.”
It was right at 7 a.m., time to head to the office except Peavey couldn’t make himself leave. He couldn’t put a finger on why. “The best way to describe it was I was convicted that I didn’t need to leave the house,” Peavey says.
He finished a cup of coffee, put his coat on and walked to the door—and then turned around and sat back in his chair. Peavey “messed around a little bit,” and when he heard his wife, Carey, get up, he made coffee for her.
“It was like I was killing time,” he says.
Confused and Convicted
He almost left after that. Then, inexplicably, he took his coat off again and poured another cup. It was nearing 7:45 a.m. and he was late.
“I told someone later I just felt confused, confused and convicted why I could not make myself leave,” he says. “As I reflected back, it was odd I felt that way.”
Climbing into his truck, which he’d started remotely, Peavey looked two houses north on Fleetwood and saw me walking. He had plenty of time to back out and leave.
“I told myself I’ll just let this gentleman pass,” Peavey explains, “but I had plenty of time to go. But I didn’t back out and go, which is not like me. When I’m ready to go, I go.”
Peavey waited but never saw me pass. Another look to his left revealed me lying on his front yard. He thought I might have turned an ankle or tripped, but as he ran to me, it was obviously something much more serious. My arm was drawn up. Peavey knew it was a heart issue. He called 911.
“Look at me, breathe, you gotta breathe,” Jim said as he leaned into me.
My breathing was labored and delayed. Peavey says I took three breaths. Some time went by and then there was another long breath.
“It was that real deep exhale and you were not breathing at all after that,” he recalls.
Peavey began life-saving chest compressions for three minutes. The seconds seemed like minutes before he heard the sirens. Not knowing what to do but wanting to do something, Carey put a blanket over my legs. In four minutes, an array of paramedics arrived.
These were skilled and determined professionals—about 15 on the scene and eight who worked feverishly to save my life. My pulse went in and out. They worked for an inordinate amount of time. They used a LUCAS chest compression device, a new state-of-the-art machine that was key in bringing me back. Finally, I was put into the ambulance, which left at a normal speed with no siren. A block later, the ambulance lit up and raced to BSA Health System’s ER.
Peavey, shaken and on an adrenaline rush, watched them leave. Later that morning, he ran into a police officer friend at a Toot’n Totum. The friend had heard his 911 call, and told Peavey he sounded calm.
“You think he’s going to be OK?” Peavey asked.
“How long did they work on him?” the officer asked.
“Twenty to 25 minutes.”
“He probably didn’t make it. Protocol is to work on someone for about 20 minutes.”
That morning, my wife, Sandy, had left earlier to run errands. She knew I should have been home when she returned a few hours later. Little did she know her husband was a John Doe at the ER with no identification on him. At the suggestion of a friend, she called the ER, and charge nurse Jess Weatherly asked her if I had been wearing the clothes she described, including blue running shoes. Sandy confirmed that.
“We have him at Cardiac Intensive Care,” Weatherly said. “I want you to remain calm and meet me at the desk. He is alive.”
No Longer Moment to Moment
At the ER , Dr. Imene Boumaza, a pulmonary/critical care doctor, directed at least a half-dozen highly skilled, highly trained, highly focused nurses whose expertise kept me alive. It was the third time that morning in three different instances I had been brought back from the brink.
“I want you to understand how critical he is,” Boumaza told my wife. “It is moment to moment. He’s so critical I cannot leave his bedside.”
I was told no one is ever described as “stable” while in ICU, but the next day it was no longer moment to moment. Complicating things, I also had pneumonia caused by aspiration during life-saving CPR.
I was given a paralytic drug. The first time I knew anything happened was 72 hours later when a nurse asked me to squeeze her finger and nod my head at some basic questions. Prior to that, I remembered nothing even a week before my collapse.
“You must have prayed really hard,” Boumaza told Sandy.
From the ICU, I went to a regular room. On Feb. 9, Dr. Lane Cox implanted a defibrillator (ICD) above my heart. Physical therapists, occupational therapists, hospitalists, doctors, and many wonderful nurses all aided in my dismissal three days later for rehab.
I went home on Feb. 16. That was 18 days after my massive electrical malfunction. I arrived home with the awareness of the many friends, family and strangers praying for me, which is beyond humbling, honoring—and powerful. Each day was built on the next, and by mid-March, I was a healthy miracle. I am blessed beyond measure.
On a lark, we visited the ICU 38 days after my collapse. I hoped to see Dr. Boumaza, though I figured she might be busy with a patient—or not there at all. She was there, and met me in the hallway outside Room No. 9, where I’d been more than a month ago. We had a teary hug.
“You saved my life,” I managed to say.
“No,” she said. “God saved your life.”
“He did,” I said, “but He used your hands.”
Good Things
None of this would have mattered, I’m convinced, without Jim Peavey, whose story I became aware of while in the hospital. We hadn’t known it, but we attend the same 8:30 a.m. worship service every week at First Baptist Church. Since then, we’ve had several long conversations.
“Look up Ephesians 2:10,” Peavey explains. “That best describes what I think my mission was that day. If you ask me why I was there when I shouldn’t have been, that’s the best I can come up with.”
In the New Living Translation, that verse says this: “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”
We’re both trying to process this circumstance. There’s a lot to unpack. A lot of questions that may wait a long time for answers—if they come at all.
One thing I don’t question is why Jim was there that morning when there was no reason to be, when he never had before. It wasn’t randomness, coincidence, luck or fate. For two hours that morning, he was an angel in human form, being shaped and molded by the Lord for such a time as this.
