Paul Benson was dead a full 10 minutes by the time a shot of epinephrine got his heart to start beating again.
It was the day after Thanksgiving 2023 and Benson, a sound engineer who co-owned Mesa music venue Club Red and fronted several metal bands, most recently Unholy Monarch, had suffered sudden cardiac arrest at 36.
“When I found him, he was dead,” Shalyse Faust, Benson’s wife, recalls. “He had no heartbeat.”
Faust called 911 and started CPR to try and get blood pumping to her husband’s brain while waiting for the paramedics, who told her he was dead on arrival.
They kept at it, though, until that shot of epinephrine brought his heartbeat back.
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Paul Benson's wife says, 'I'm just glad he's still here'
“I’m just glad he’s still here,” Faust says. “The doctor said he had less than a five percent chance of waking up, let alone having brain activity. He did suffer a traumatic brain injury but it’s affecting him physically, not mentally, so cognitively, he’s all there, which is great.”
Benson was in the intensive care unit for 12 weeks, hooked up to a ventilator and feeding tube while underdoing dialysis when his kidneys stopped working. He also had to have a tracheostomy.
That hospital stay was followed by a brief stint in a rehab hospital until his insurance stopped covering that because he wasn’t making enough progress. So he went from rehab to a skilled nursing facility, which “was just not good,” Faust says.
In March, his wife purchased a hospital bed, a Hoyer lift and other medical equipment to bring her husband home at last.
“Insurance couldn’t find a medical equipment provider that could get me all the equipment needed for him to come home for 90 days, and he only had less than a couple weeks left of skilled nursing facility stay,” Faust says. “So I paid out of pocket quite a bit to get the items here so he could come home.”
Benson was back in the hospital for emergency surgery in May
On May 6, Benson was back in the hospital for emergency surgery.
“He started vomiting blood and went to the hospital,” Faust recalls.
“They sent him home but then within a few days, he was vomiting blood again. We were told he had ulcers and I guess one of them perforated his esophagus and created an arterial bleed and he had to go in for emergency surgery. He’s home now, though. But it’s been a lot.”
In addition to paying for medical equipment and other things insurance didn’t cover, the couple had to purchase a wheelchair-accessible van.
“It’s gonna be a while before he can walk and support himself,” Faust says.
“Like, a long time. He's improving, though. Physical therapy comes in twice a week. We also have occupational therapy. And he has a nurse come visit twice a week.”
Faust has also been racking up medical expenses of her own since being diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome in May 2023.
“I was paralyzed and not able to walk for a couple months,” she says. That required a month in the hospital and a second month in rehab.
“I’m still in physical therapy,” Faust says, “on top of being his full-time caregiver.”
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The metal scene will come together for two benefit shows
As often happens in these situations, Benson’s friends in the music community have come together to stage two benefit shows to help defray the couple’s medical expenses.
Kim LaRowe, a concert promoter at 13th Floor Entertainment, put the shows together.
“I’ve known Paul for a really long time,” she says.
“I knew him before he worked at Club Red. He was in Unholy Monarch and I was booking bands. Then he’d be running shows at Club Red, doing sound and stuff. And he ended up being one of the owners when I worked there.”
Benson started playing in bands as a teenager.
One night at Club Red in his early 20s, Benson approached Patrick Driscoll, the audio engineer, and asked what it would take to do that kind of work.
“Patrick normally wouldn’t take on someone as an intern that hadn’t gone to school yet for it, but he could see Paul’s passion so he had him start interning at Club Red,” Faust says.
Ten years ago, Club Red promoted Benson to production manager. He was general manager by the time the club’s previous owner, Kim Commons, died in 2015, at which point Benson became part owner until Commons’ daughter decided to close the club during the COVID-19 shutdown because, as Faust says, there was just no end in sight.
“He worked his way from the bottom up, put in all his time,” Faust says. “He ended up going to Mesa Community College for classes an audio engineering as well."
At the time of his heart attack, Benson was working as an audio engineer lead tech at the Arizona State University School of Music. He’s since been terminated. Faust says it's because he was unable to return to work.
ASU doesn't comment on personnel matters.
'All these bands know Paul and were happy to get on board'
Finding bands to perform at the benefit shows for Benson was no problem.
“All these bands know Paul and were happy to get on board,” LaRowe says.
“He’s, like, one of them. He’s either mixed your band or booked your band, been in your band. And he’s done lots of benefits for people at Club Red. So it was super easy. People lined up to get on these shows. Generally, this scene takes care of its own, so I’m hoping people turn out and support it.”
The first Metal for Paul concert on Saturday, June 15, at the Nile Theatre in Mesa features Saintbreaker, the Exiled Martyr, Shores of Ithaka, Ass Wipe Junkies, the Accident Theory, Invirulant and Gasping.
The second benefit concert is at Yucca Tap Room in Tempe on Friday, June 21, with Six Million Dead, Scattered Guts and Intent.
Faust says Benson is thrilled that this is happening.
“He cares about the music scene tremendously,” Faust says.
“Most of the people that have come and visited him are all people he’s known from the music scene, that he’s played in bands with or mixed their albums, and they’ve come out here to Queen Creek. So he’s excited and really appreciates it.”
Benson hopes to put in an appearance at the shows.
“He can be in a wheelchair for two to three hours before it’s too painful,” Faust says.
“But I did pay a lot of money and got myself a wheelchair-accessible van and we’ve been practicing going to the grocery store and things like that to get his tolerance up, so hopefully he’ll be able to stop by and say ‘Hey.’”
LaRowe just hopes it helps the couple make it through this.
“I don’t even know if this will be a drop in the bucket, but it would be something towards it,” she says. “I’m hoping that whatever we come up with helps. I mean, he died for a few minutes. He almost didn’t make it to have a benefit concert.”
Metal for Paul benefit concerts
Nile Theatre: 5 p.m. Saturday, June 15. The Nile, 105 W. Main St., Mesa. $15. 480-559-5859,eventbrite.com.
Yucca Tap Room: 8 p.m. Friday, June 21. Yucca Tap Room, 29 W. Southern Ave., Tempe. $13.480-967-4777,yuccatap.com.
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Reach the reporter ated.masley@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter)@EdMasley.
