For two days in May 2023, Aguilar went to work despite having chest pains. He did stop at an urgent care clinic where a medical provider told him to go straight to the hospital.

“As stubborn and hard-headed as it was, I looked at him, and I got mad because they didn’t want to see me,” Aguilar said. “They said, ‘go to the hospital.’”

Aguilar ignored the advice and went home. His son and father also encouraged him to get checked out.

On the third day, Aguilar finally broke down and made the 20-minute drive from his home in Spring to St. Luke’s Health–The Woodlands Hospital. The pain he was experiencing felt like a “two-ton elephant on my chest.”

“I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think,” he said.

Aguilar parked in the emergency room parking lot but in a spot farthest away from the entrance.

“There were so many spots closer, but I was sitting there going, ‘Why did I do that?’” he said.

Outside of his car, holding his chest, a nurse spotted Aguilar and sped up to reach him. Hearing his symptoms, she quickly whisked him inside, past the registration desk and straight back to an emergency bay.

The quickness of the team’s actions got Aguilar’s attention and he finally could acknowledge, “This is some serious stuff.”

The nurse stayed by Aguilar’s side, assuring him he was going to be OK.

Aguilar was soon in the cardiac catheterization lab where a specialist checked the internal workings of his heart. When he woke up, the cardiologist told Aguilar he was having a major heart attack and needed to be admitted for triple bypass surgery.

“The whole time that nurse, she never left my side. She held my hand. She kept going, ‘You're at the right spot. You're at the right place. You're going to make it,’” he said.

Later, Aguilar’s family and friends arrived, including his father, who had his own triple-bypass operation more than a decade ago.

Dr. Vivek Patel performed Aguilar’s 3½ hour bypass surgery. Each of Aguilar’s three arteries was 80% blocked, including the vital left anterior descending artery that supplies a significant portion of blood to the heart. The surgery was a success.