Medic has a heart attack... saving cardiac arrest patient
A PARAMEDIC treating a cardiac arrest patient suffered a heart attack himself during a call-out.
Senior emergency medical technician Jeremy Williams, 53, was resuscitating a woman at her home when he felt an ‘excruciating’ pain in his chest.
His colleagues quickly realised what was happening and continued to treat the patient, while others carried out an electrocardiogram on Mr Williams.
When they established he was having a heart attack, they then worked side by side on both patients at the house in Stewexperience, artby, Bedfordshire, before they were taken to separate hospitals.
East of England Ambulance Service worker Mr Williams underwent surgery to have two stents fitted to unblock arteries around his heart.
He and the 30-year-old woman are making full recoveries.
Mr Williams said: ‘We knew it was a bad job when we arrived because the patient’s condition was so serious, but it just seemed to get worse.’ Describing his own
he added: ‘I’ve come off a motorbike at high speed so know what pain is, but have never felt anything like I did on that day.
‘It was so excruciating that the crew couldn’t dry my chest to attach the ECG. But once they
did get a reading, they knew what they had to do.
‘I can laugh about it now because I’m glad to be here, but if it hadn’t been for my colleagues it would be a completely different story.’
He was transferred straight to a specialist cardiology unit at the Lister Hospital in Stevenage, Hertfordshire.
Mr Williams said: ‘I shudder to think what the outcome would be if this had happened on a country road in the middle of nowhere.
‘I couldn’t have had it with better people around me.’
Ambulance staff Mark Evans, Nadine Ward, Paul Neary, Dave Jadidi and Sophie Reynolds worked to treat both patients.
Shift leader Shaun Whittington, an advanced paramedic in urgent
‘It was so excruciating’
‘Looked like he was about to die’
care, described the incident as one he would never forget.
‘Jeremy’s heart rate and blood pressure dropped dramatically while we were on the way to hospital and at one point I thought he was going to go into cardiac arrest,’ he said.
‘I don’t know who was sweating more – him or me. He had the stents fitted and within just 40 minutes he was a completely different person.
‘When we arrived he looked like he was about to die, but after the surgery it was like he had just come home from a holiday.’
A heart attack is when blood flow to the heart is restricted, while a cardiac arrest is when the organ stops beating unexpectedly.