Brian Estes has always had a heart for the Ruston Bearcats.
A lifelong Ruston resident and graduate from the class of ’88, Brian has seen many state championships for the Firmly Founded over the years, preferring to attend as many Bearcat football games as he possibly can ever since he was a child.
One state championship eluded him however: the most recent one in 2023, despite him being in the stands with 20 minutes to go before kickoff.
You see, it was that same heart for the Bearcats that would commit the act of ultimate betrayal: it would stop for 20 minutes in the Super Dome, sending his friends’ and family’s world upside-down for a terrifying four days where the outcome would be anything but certain.
A true miracle man, Brian is thankfully still with us. But the family shared the tumultuous time from the stadium, to the ambulance, to the emergency surgery, to the road to recovery.
Their terrifying weekend began on a Friday morning with Brian and two of his children, Taylor (RHS, ’13) and Caroline (RHS, ’23) heading down to New Orleans for the 2023 Non-Select, Division I state title game, where Ruston High would be making a repeat trip after falling short in 2022 on a quest to win the first title in over three decades.
After arriving in New Orleans, the family checked themselves into the hotel at the Harrah’s Casino and did some normal exploring downtown.
“We changed clothes, went down to the French Quarter, and ate pretty good,” Brian said. “We ran into some other Bearcat fans and talked to them– we ended up doing that for a couple of hours. Nothing eventful. Then we woke up the next morning and went for beignets.”
Saturday morning, they realized they had walked a pretty good bit (and sometimes in the wrong direction). It was then Brian started feeling like something was wrong but figured he was just a little tired.
“It got to where I thought that I really needed to go back to the hotel and lay down a minute,” Brian said. “And then I started feeling better, so we decided to go to Champion’s Square where everybody was setting up.”
It was on that walk that Brian began experiencing chest pains again, sometime around 3 p.m.
“He didn’t want to use the words ‘chest tightness’ because it would scare everybody,” Taylor said. “We all kept thinking it was heartburn or indigestion.”
After they visited with others and snacked on some jambalaya, the Estes crew headed toward the Super Dome. Slowly but surely, Brian began feeling worse.
“It felt like somebody was just lightly hitting me in the chest,” Estes said, blaming a bowl of jambalaya that he had eaten earlier. “At this point, I see the front door of the Super Dome and I’m planning to go in and get a water. But after that, I started feeling a little worse and worse.”
The group was finally making their way to their seats, as the plan for Brian all along was to meet up with Shane and Callie Grubb, two close friends who had planned to watch the game next to the Estes in the ‘Dome.
Still not getting any relief, Brian and Caroline both made their way to a first aid station, hoping that an antacid would be the cure-all.
“I told her to just come with me and don’t say the words ‘chest pains,'” Brian said. “So we walked up the steps and I asked somebody where first aid was. Thankfully it was close by, so we walked in. They made me sit down immediately and ran a test.”
Brian was tested with a portable EKG, which the EMTs decided to run two times.
“The first time, the results looked funny,” Caroline said. “And the guy was a little concerned because it didn’t look like it’s normally supposed to. But most EMTs would have run with it and would have called it a day. But he had a weird feeling and called his supervisor.”
That supervisor would be Adrian Brouillette, a paramedic for Acadian Ambulance Service.
“Just upon looking at him, he didn’t seem right,” Brouillette said of Brian. “His color was off a little bit– he was clammy and sweaty. And then he told me something that really piqued my interest: we had the air conditioner on in the room and it was chilly, but he said that he was very, very hot and started fanning himself. That’s very unusual. We started digging a little deeper and we put him on a cardiac monitor.”
By this time, the tests were starting to be conclusive: Brian was in the early stages of a heart attack. Caroline herself admitted that reality of this was not setting in.
“I was just kind of having a good time,” Caroline said. “I was just sitting there, music was playing, and I was like, this is so fun, you know? Dad’s going to be fine, and then we’re coming back (to the game).”
After they talked it over with the first EMT, Brouillette then calmly told the family that they need to go to the hospital. Dumbfounded, Brian tried pleading his case to not be put on the gurney and that he would walk over to the ambulance.
“I was not going to have people seeing me on a gurney,” Estes said and followed with a laugh. “So I grabbed my wires, and Adrian walks behind me and has his hand on my back. And there was the ambulance.”
At this point, the family met emergency medical technician Justin Calderon, who admitted to being irate that a man in the early stages of a heart attack is up and walking around.
“I got pretty heated because he wasn’t on a stretcher or in some type of wheel chair,” Calderon said. “At this point, you’re exhausting the heart even further. We put him in the truck, and I hop in the back to start doing my own assessment. Maybe a minute goes by, and he starts saying that he feels really, really dizzy. And then he just passed out in front of me.”
Up in the front of the ambulance, Caroline was sitting in the passenger seat, waiting to be transported with her father to Tulane Medical, right next to the Superdome.
All of a sudden, she felt the ambulance begin to shake.
“I didn’t think anything of it, at first,” Caroline said. “But then, Adrian opens the door and puts his hand on my leg.”
Brouillette then delivered Caroline the terrifying news: Brian was in the beginning stages of a heart attack and now unresponsive. The ambulance shaking was the beginning of a 20-minute effort to revive him and get him back.
“I just looked at him blankly, and then it all finally hit me,” Caroline said. “I completely broke down.”
Grubb had his suspicions a few weeks earlier that something just wasn’t quite right.
One of Brian Estes’ best friends, Grubb and Callie have made fall Fridays ritual with the Estes family to watch the Ruston High Bearcats play on the gridiron.
And it was at a pregame tailgate at West Monroe, five weeks prior to Brian’s heart attack in the Superdome, that Grubb’s curiosity piqued.
“He was complaining of heartburn that night,” Grubb said. “And now, putting it together, we know it was likely his heart (showing early signs).”
It was at the end of the first quarter in the state championship game that the Grubbs started realizing, again, something just wasn’t quite right.
After seeing Brian and his kids prior to the game, the plan was simple: Shane and Callie would go to the seats and Brian would join them soon after.
Throughout the first quarter, Brian’s seats were empty. And not one to miss a Bearcat game, especially one of this magnitude, Brian’s absence gave Grubb enough pause. Those suspicions were confirmed when Brian’s oldest son, Taylor, ran by their seats on the phone.
“He said that he’d call me in two seconds,” Grubb said. “I didn’t know what was going on at the time, so I got up and found him. He told me what was going on.”
At this point, Brian had undergone20 minutes of chest compressions and six shocks from a defibrillator in the back of the ambulance by Calderon and another EMT, Jasmine Smith.
“He was having the big one,” Calderon said later. “It’s known as the ‘Widowmaker’ — the one most people do not survive.”
Brian and his daughter Caroline were transported to Tulane Medical near the Superdome, and his son Taylor was trying to find his way out of the stadium to follow his dad and sister, after he notified Brian’s wife Jennifer and his brother Will of the situation. Taylor described feeling like a caged animal trying to break free.
“I just need someone to get me out and point me in the right direction,” Taylor said. “I take off running, trying to push everybody out of the way and run as fast as possible. And I look behind me, and Shane is with me.”
They finally got to the waiting room and met with Caroline and her boyfriend Ashton. Callie would join her husband Shane, soon after with the rest of the group.
Caroline recalled seeing Calderon for the first time in the waiting room, who came in to update the family and friends on Brian’s situation.
“Out of nowhere comes a big, huge guy with tattoos and piercings, and he just sits down in front of me,” Caroline said. “I have mascara down my face and I’m in tears, and I look up and there is this calm person who is radiating good energy. He said, ‘Your dad is one strong man.'”
Calderon proceeded to walk through everything the medical staff did to keep Brian alive and get him to Tulane Medical to begin work on an artery that had a 100 percent blockage.
Not out of the woods yet, Brian’s family and friends were in the waiting room listening to an audio stream of the Ruston High championship game. Over the loud speakers, they heard a call for a Code Blue, and Taylor and Caroline immediately and correctly sensed what it meant: Brian had coded yet again for the second time in two hours, this time from a failed stint.
“The worst part during that time was the waiting game,” Caroline said. “There was just no news and we were sitting for hours after hearing that. Finally, a nurse stopped in and let us know that (Brian) was okay.”
Around midnight, Brian was moved to the ICU and was fully sedated. The group could now go visit him in a room.
“I had a lot more peace now that I could see him,” Caroline said.
Jokingly, Taylor leaned over to Shane and asked how he thought Brian will feel in the morning knowing that they all saw him like this. Near this point, Jennifer and Will have arrived, and the family was getting ready to rest for the night.
Over the course of Sunday, Brian gradually began to wake up and regain consciousness. Too weak to fully communicate, Brian was given a pen and wrote “RHS?” on a piece of paper, wanting to know if Ruston won the state championship. Taylor responded, “Yeah, Dad. They won.”
“I gave a thumbs up,” Brian said, “and I laid back down for 20 minutes and fell asleep. And my thumb stayed up.”
Throughout the rest of the his stay in New Orleans (he was discharged the Thursday after the game after multiple successful stint procedures), Brian would meet with two of his heroes from the episode: Calderon and Adrian Brouillette, who both worked diligently to save his life and still check on him to this day.
For Calderon’s work on Brian, he earned a meritorious service award, though what he will remember the most is the hug Brian gave him, knowing that for every story like Brian’s, there are so many more who do not survive, let alone have a full physical and mental recovery.
“I go in and see him, and he has the biggest smile on his face,” Calderon said. “It made me cry; I haven’t felt that kind of hug. Thinking of it right now gives me tears. We have so many people go into cardiac arrest; when you have to work on someone for over 15 minutes and shock them six times, they normally don’t make it.
“When I saw him, I was like you are the luckiest, unluckiest (person) I’ve ever met. You were in cardiac arrest at the right time.”
In the aftermath, and nearly 30 pounds lighter, Brian can’t help but reflect on the sequence of events that led to him to still being here today. He received the best quality care one could ask for with the type of heart attack he experienced: Tulane Medical. Had Ruston not made the championship game, he would not have been in New Orleans. Had he returned to his seat instead of seeking help, Brouillette and Calderon would likely have not had the few precious seconds they needed to bring him back. Brian admits it’s evidence from the Lord above watching over him.
“The Lord was with us all the way, from where the first aid was located in the Superdome to the time we got to the hospital,” Estes said.
Brouillette will forever remember Brian’s story, as well. In fact, he now teaches what is know as the Brian Estes Scenario for reminding first responders to not just go with the first scan if they have any hesitation. And he wants to use Brian’s example as a means of precaution for other people to not ignore potential symptoms.
“The signs to look for are any chest pain associated with nausea or vomits and a general feeling that something is not right,” Brouillette said. “Don’t just push it aside if it’s concerning enough that it makes you think about it. Get it checked out.
“I’ve been doing this for 17 years — he’s only the third person (I’ve worked on) that has had these types of results in recovery. He’s indeed a miracle.”
