Rob A. Gentile: Lessons of Love from a Near Death Experience

Rob never expected a heart attack or near death experience, but he is thankful he learned more about God, love and connection because of these hardships. BioRob A. Gentile was born one of four boys outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Italian immigrants. His grandfather and father worked at a steel company where Rob also began his career right out of high school. For the past 25 years, he has worked as a sales engineer living in Texas, California, Tennessee and now resides in Charlotte, North Carolina. Rob has won several awards for his sales efforts including diversity supplier award for the Minority Business Development Council. He's been blessed to have been married for 30 years and he and his wife have also been blessed with a wonderful daughter Maria, who is 23 and has been diagnosed with Rett Syndrome, a rare neurological disorder. Photography CareerRob has a passion for photography that started in the seventh or eighth grade. Rob had always been very visual and his brother gave him a camera. He started to research photography and light, and even built a darkroom in his basement where he started to developing his own photographs. From that point on, he was hooked. When the steel company that Rob had been working for went out of business, he found himself out of a job and decided to dedicate that time to pursuing his photography passion. His older brother was working as a writer for Newsweek at the time. Rob drove to Guatemala to learn Spanish and then met his brother in Nicaragua and became a freelance stringer for the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune. Rob spent a lot of time in combat situations. Often, young soldiers would dive on top of Rob to protect him while they were under fire. They told him they did that so that he could help the truth to come out. Rob says that living through wars was like training for the challenges that were looming in his life in the not too distant future. The Heart AttackIn 2016, Rob had surgery on his neck to remove some bone spurs he had developed from old sports injuries. It was a relatively easy procedure, so Rob was only in the hospital overnight to make sure there were no problems. Four days later at about 11 o'clock at night, Rob had a massive heart attack. He was screaming and writhing in bed, and his wife initially thought it was their daughter having seizures, as that was a typical occurrence for her around that time. When she realized it was Rob, she called the ambulance. Hospital & ComaRob was rushed to the hospital but the doctors could not revive him. He was unresponsive and without a pulse for 20 minutes. They did several injections of epinephrine and paddle shocks. They did everything they could and were on the verge of giving up when there was a small sign of a heartbeat. At that point they rushed Rob to surgery and fished a balloon pump into his heart to remove the blockage, (which that is commonly called the widow-maker), and they also placed two stents. But it was too late. Rob's heart was too damaged. He slipped into a coma for four days. When he woke up, he was told that the only way he would survive was a getting a heart transplant. He was just 56 years old. Looking for a TransplantSo Rob started on a journey to find a new heart. He went to a wide variety of regional transplant centers and was told the same thing: Hearts are in short supply. His only option was to be in the hospital for 40 days and be placed on the critical list. If a heart arrived, he would be there to get it. But if a heart didn't come, he would have to be put on a device called an LVAD, which is commonly used for people who can't get a heart. Rob didn't want an LVAD because of the challenges helping with Maria and trying to keep up with his life. It wasn't a good fit. So he was turned down by multiple transplant organizations. He was about to give up on his search. At that point he called his boss and told him what was going on and that he would have to resign. His boss...