Death Cheated at Casbah

"I started feeling sick right as I was walking off the stage at the Casbah on April 12," says 7th Day Buskers guitarist/banjoist Shawn Rohlf. Severe chest pains landed him at his doctor's a few days later.

"She called me back that night and said my heart enzymes were so high they were off the charts and to get to the emergency room immediately. I was at risk of having a massive heart attack at any second. Once in the ER, I was hooked up to IVs, heart monitors, oxygen, and they were squirting nitroglycerin under my tongue...isn't that the stuff they used to blow up bridges with in the old John Wayne movies? A few hours later, a cardiologist came in and told me I'd already had a heart attack."

Rohlf's doctors say he should recover in about three months and that he must take heart medication for at least half a year.

"This all happened one week before my 39th birthday," continues Rohlf. "I'm normally in good health and rarely get sick at all, so it was a bit of a shock.... I certainly had a moment of thinking that this might be the end of the road when I was lying there all hooked to stuff and my heart was fluttering and flying all over the place. It became a moment of analyzing where I've been and what I've done or haven't done yet and actually deciding I'm not really ready to give this all up yet."