Heart shock ‘like a dream’
‘‘ You start to think about . . . how close it was to being a really bad situation.’’ Josh Margetts
It feels strange to watch yourself dying. Josh Margetts does not remember the day he collapsed on a futsal court, when his heart stopped working, but he has seen the video plenty of times.
It is, the 29-year-old Auckland man says, like ‘‘watching a dream’’.
‘‘I know it is me because I can see it but I have no connection to the event itself – no memories of stress, anxiety or pain.’’
His knowledge of what happened has been pieced together from the footage and accounts from witnesses.
‘‘It was so hard seeing the impact it had on some of my closest mates and team-mates,’’ he says. ‘‘They were pretty much watching their friend die in front of them.’’
He realises how lucky he is to be alive. ‘‘ You start to think about your own mortality, how close it was to being a really bad situation.’’
Margetts was doing futsal training with Auckland Football in 2017 when he suffered a cardiac arrest.
As he lay face down on the court at Barfoot and Thompson Stadium in Kohimarama, coach Alejo Perez Leguizamon and friend and team-mate Kareem Osman sprang into action.
Osman, a doctor, and Leguizamon, trained in first aid, acted swiftly to offer Margetts the best chance of survival.
They provided CPR for 23 minutes and Margetts was shocked seven times with an AED (automatic external defibrillator). As the minutes went by, they began to fear the worst.
‘‘It seemed like we had been going forever and I knew his chance of survival was getting worse with every cycle,’’ Osman says.
After an eighth shock with the AED, Margetts’ heart returned to a normal rhythm but after more than 23 minutes of CPR, Osman did not have high hopes.
‘‘I felt a little guilty, if I am honest, that we may not have done enough. I kept thinking of what I could have done better.’’
Margetts was taken to hospital and placed in an induced coma for three days. When he woke up, he could not remember the six months before his cardiac arrest and would forget things after 15 minutes.
Margetts recalls one emotional day in hospital when he asked Osman exactly what had happened. ‘‘I was crying, and he was pretty upset as well, and at the end of it he told me: this is actually the fifth or sixth time I have told you this week and it has been the exact same reaction every time.’’
Doctors have been unable to explain what caused the cardiac arrest in such a young person.
Margetts was in hospital for two weeks but it took six months for him to regain more brain function and he also had to learn to walk again.
He now lives with an ICD (internal cardiac defibrillator) in his chest that will shock his heart if it stops again, which he describes as an ‘‘insurance policy’’.
Margetts returned to futsal training eight months later and was again selected for the national team within a year and a half.
‘‘I wanted to show that I was still good enough and this had not affected me.’’
Margetts is far from alone in suffering a cardiac arrest. More than 1000 Kiwis collapse with it each year while not in hospital.
Many have no prior symptoms and get no warning.
Fewer than 8 per cent will survive if they don’t receive immediate treatment. However, the use of an AED can increase the chance of survival after cardiac arrest by up to 40 per cent.
In Margetts’ case, he was fortunate an AED was on site thanks to New Zealand Football’s AED Smart Start campaign, which has seen 280 AEDS donated to football clubs across the country since 2016.
ACC helps with funding for the programme and renewed its investment in January.
ACC injury prevention leader James Whitaker says ACC is proud to support the initiative because prevention and player safety is paramount.
Margetts is encouraging all football clubs to have an AED plan in place for winter.