Back From the Dead: Revived Artist Repays Safety Harbor Fire Department

What does a person do when given a second chance at life?

If you’re Warren Sodt, a local artist who was revived after suffering a fatal heart attack three years ago this month, you continue to repay the people who are responsible for you being here.

Sodt visited Safety Harbor Fire Station #52 on Wednesday to present the department with a large painted patch that will adorn a wall of the Main Street firehouse. It was the second such item he has designed for the department.

“How do you repay your life being saved?” Sodt asked. “When I learned they were trying to find someone to paint a patch on the wall, I said ‘deal’.” 

The story of what happened that night and in the days after reads like a work of fiction. 

Sodt and his wife, Joanne Hess, were having dinner at Poblano’s on McMullen Booth Road. Fresh off a clean bill of health from his doctor, Sodt was eating Mexican food and drinking margaritas, enjoying life.

The next thing he remembers was waking up in the hospital three days later. In between he died, only to be revived by the first responders after five attempts at resuscitation. 

“We got there and he was full-blown code, clinically dead, for 25 minutes,” Safety Harbor Fire Captain Ray Duke said on Tuesday.

“We defibrillated him five times. No one comes back from that. Ever.”

But, miraculously and inexplicably, Sodt did.

Not only did he come back, he was apparently alert and communicating with people by the time he got to the hospital. 

“The amazing part is he regained consciousness on the scene,” Duke said. "I still get goosebumps thinking about it.”

Fellow fireman Charles Russell recalled another incredible detail from that evening. 

“As he was being carried out on the stretcher he gave the thumbs up sign to the room,” he said. “And everyone went nuts!”

Despite his actions, Sodt has no recollection of any of it. 

To this day he expresses regret at not being able to remember anything.

“I died and didn’t know it,” he said. “I’m very metaphysical, so not being able to remember any of it is absolutely devastating to me.”

Today Sodt sports a pacemaker, and he still really doesn't understand what happened that night; the doctors told him he suffered a disturbance of the electronic forces between his brain and his heart.

But he does realize he is fortunate to have a second chance at life, and he is taking full advantage of it.

The longtime set designer is working a show at Ruth Eckerd Hall this summer, and he still returns to the scene of his brief death experience.

“Since my death I’ve done 18 shows...and I still love Poblano's,” the 68-year-old said.

“God has been good to me is how I look at it.”

Note: Sodt and Hess wanted to mention by name the Safety Harbor Fire Department personnel who were on the scene of Sodt's incident: Charles Russell; David Lock; Dave Pacheco; and Ray Duke.

Stay connected to your community. Sign up for the free Safety Harbor Patch email newsletter and you won't miss a thing!