Survivor’s precious seven days
A woman whose husband died days after suffering a heart attack in a supermarket says there aren’t enough words to describe her gratitude to the produce manager whose first aid gave her precious extra time with her husband of 34 years.
Ian Foreman died on Saturday, a week after having a heart attack in the Spotswood Countdown in New Plymouth, where his life had been saved by Shane White, who performed CPR.
‘‘I’m just so, so, so grateful for that time because we were able to talk about things,’’ Ian’s wife Rhondda Foreman said.
‘‘It just gave us that time and he told me he loved me.’’.
‘‘There’s not enough words in the English language to describe how very grateful I am to Shane for giving us this time for all the family. It’s just very, very special.
‘‘He knew he was dying, but we were just so grateful for Shane.’’
Rhondda and Ian first met through her ex-husband, who was on a trip to Rarotonga with some mates, she said.
‘‘We all had a get together thing that him and his first wife came to and we sort of fell in love. That was so powerful, we couldn’t stop it. It’s never stopped.’’
She described her husband as ‘‘larger than life’’. He loved golf, gardening, travelling and was a great storyteller.
‘‘And he would exaggerate to the hilt. He actually thinks he was a bit of a Wilbur Smith.’’
The couple had met Wilbur Smith, whose novels Ian loved, while they were in Australia.
‘‘The second time Wilbur looked up [from signing a book] and said ‘fancy seeing you again’.’’
The couple farmed in Tikorangi for about five or six years before moving to Australia for the first time.
They went strawberry picking, and Ian worked in the meatworks, before they bought a ‘mixed business’ - similar to a dairy but with more selection.
‘‘Then one day a man came in and instead of buying ice creams he wanted to buy the shop,’’ Rhondda said.
They also farmed on a small acreage, ran pubs in Morven, London and Tenthill, and toured Europe in ‘Henry’ the campervan, coming back to New Zealand for short periods in between.
While in Tenthill, Ian was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and soon after that, they decided to retire, and ‘‘really started travelling’’, visiting every continent.
‘‘We went on all these wonderful trips to South Africa, Egypt, Argentina... most of the islands, Rarotonga. We all met the Foreman family on Norfolk Island.’’
After a while, they decided to move back to Taranaki from Queensland to be closer to family.
‘‘We thought, this is silly. We were missing out on birthdays and my dad died and we couldn’t get home because there were no seats on the plane because the Bledisloe Cup was on.’’
Their last trip was to Rarotonga in March, which wasn’t too far for Ian with his heart and prostate medication. But he hadn’t been quite right since having pneumonia at Easter, she said.
‘‘He was a big man, with big wide shoulders, and a big heart
"I'm just so, so, so grateful for that time because we were able to talk about things. It just gave us that time and he told me he loved me." Rhondda Foreman
that just stopped,’’ Rhondda said.
‘‘In his funny way he was a very macho man but he had a romantic side to him. He had a wild sense of humour.
‘‘Our life has been a big adventure. It’s closed now; it’s a bit sad.’’
Countdown declined to comment, but Shane White said in a statement that he was very saddened to hear the news.