GULF SHORES, Ala. — Affectionately known as Chuck, 62-year-old Charles Ritchie has spent his time on Earth touching the lives around him. Those who know him can’t speak of him without smiling.

“He said, ‘Hi, I’m Chuck Ritchie and I’m going to be the best salesman you’ve ever had,’” Claude O’Connor, Ritchie’s best friend, legal guardian and constant care taker said as he remembered the day he met Ritchie at work. “That fascinated me; I just loved optimism like that.”

The “all around good guy,” as he has been tagged, has lived enough experiences to be 200 years old, his friends commonly joke. Ritchie has fought in a war, served as policeman in Slidell, La., been a top salesman at Meyer Real Estate and has enjoyed life to the fullest. But now, after suffering a brain damaging heart attack, Ritchie is living an experience no one expected.

On March 27, 1996, after a plane ride to Boca Raton, Fla. to visit his ex-wife, Ritchie went in to cardiac arrest, possibly suffered four seizures and died.

“I left him at the airport at 7 a.m. that morning,” O’Connor said of Ritchie, who he had developed a brotherhood within just three years of knowing him. O’Connor spoke with Ritchie that night after he arrived safely and they planned to talk the next morning.

“(Ritchie’s ex-wife) called at 9:03 and said ‘Claude, Chuck is dead’ and he was,” O’Connor said.

Ritchie died for an unknown amount of time and was revived, but not without suffering major brain damage from a loss of oxygen. When O’Connor arrived in Boca Raton he found Ritchie in a coma and was told he wouldn’t survive without life support. Against O’Connor’s wishes Ritchie was taken off of his respirator. But after doctor’s noticed activity in Ritchie’s brain he was placed back on life support.

From there, Ritchie began fighting the odds to come out alive. After a long series of rehabilitation centers and hospital stints, Ritchie has found a home with O’Connor in Gulf Shores. Ritchie, the awe-inspiring man who learned to fly a plane in 18 days, now needs around-the-clock care.

O’Connor, who cares for Ritchie, has created a rehabilitative program and team to rally around his friend. Ritchie has been suffering for 13 years with his brain injury, but O’Connor continues to work as glimpses of hope shine through.

From physical therapy to social encounters, Ritchie is inundated with restoration work. He sees a trainer three times a week, he swims on Mondays, he takes dance on Wednesdays and receives constant positive stimulation. Ritchie isn’t given bad news and isn’t condescended, as both cause a counter reaction against his progression. In a surprising and interesting twist, Ritchie had a positive reaction in 2006 to the anxiety medication Valium.

“He didn’t really talk until April 20, three years ago,” O’Connor said in early March from his home that has been completely transformed for Ritchie. “That was when he had his second Valium.”

By this time, it had been 10 years since he had spoken. But when Ritchie was prescribed Valium for a series of medical procedures he didn’t grow drowsy from the medication; instead, Ritchie livened up. He began talking, was alert and redeveloped his personality.

O’Connor said through a few weeks of taking the Valium he witnessed a pattern of Ritchie improving.

“Every day he seemed more engaged and more talkative. Then they would stop it on Friday and you saw he was less involved on Saturday and even less on Sunday,” said Dr. Linda Roussel, Ritchie’s case manager.

Since O’Connor felt the neurologist wouldn’t believe him, he videotaped Ritchie’s progression during the week, then taped Ritchie’s digression on the weekends when he wasn’t taking the Valium.

“Three neurologists agree (Valium) is the procuring cause of this, but they just don’t know why,” O’Connor said. “They think that the area of the brain that inhibits speech is being disinhibited by the Valium.”

There have been no known discoveries before Ritchie of the treatment Valium has caused. Ritchie now takes 7.5 milligrams of Valium every evening.

In 1997, when Ritchie was admitted to the Rehabilitation Living Centers in New Orleans, Roussel was working there and said Ritchie mumbled gibberish and was very frightened and on edge about his environment.

“Research shows that changes made will most likely be in the first 18 months,” Roussel said. “Chuck has gone way past that.”

Now he is becoming himself again. He easily tells story, with slurred speech, of his death-defying acts as a police officer. War movies cue him to recall his military service in the Vietnam War. With no stress he can recite his motto, “What a man can dream, a man can do.”

O’Connor, amazed and inspired by the discovery, is now dedicated to spreading the word about what Valium could possibly do for the brain-injured. He is now on the path to get the story national recognition and possibly help others who are facing similarities to Ritchie’s battle.

But Roussel said it isn’t just the medication that has led to the progression, but the total commitment to Ritchie’s rehabilitation.

“It’s very methodically put together, there’s no chance here,” Roussel said of the team O’Connor created. “The Valium won’t just turn everything around if you don’t have that infrastructure.”

Endearing is O’Connor’s dedication to the man who grew to be his best friend.

“I’ve been in nursing for 35 years and I have never in my lifetime as a nurse seen this kind of devotion,” Roussel said.

“I want my friend back,” O’Connor said. “My goal is to get as much improvement with him as possible.”