Woman reaches out to ‘superheroes’ who saved her
FIVE years after collapsing while eating a carrot and having a cardiac arrest, Phillipa Scott remains full of gratitude to the people she calls her superheroes.
The Dunedin woman has made a point of thanking the people who saved her life by giving her CPR on New Year’s Eve 2015, and she wanted to update them on her situation.
Her brother David Allnatt, firefighters from the Roslyn station and St John ambulance staff all pitched in to provide CPR, and Mrs Scott was then looked after at Dunedin and Christchurch Hospitals.
Mrs Scott (45) said she was aware firefighters and ambulance crews were working that night, rather than spending time with their families.
She was a keen watcher of emergency programmes on television and realised that once a patient had been dropped off from an ambulance, staff did not necessarily know any more about them.
‘‘So I decided it was finally time to acknowledge my five years of survival and thank you all properly,’’ she said in a letter to St John staff and the Roslyn Fire Station.
Mrs Scott had no memory of what happened at her brother’s house in Wakari from 11.20pm, but she had been told plenty about it.
Her brother performed CPR for 810 minutes before the team of firefighters and ambulance staff took over.
‘‘My family tell me I had another 26 minutes of CPR and two shocks from the defibrillator until I was stable enough to be transferred to hospital.’’
After staying a few days in Dunedin Hospital, she was flown to Christchurch and had a cardiac resynchronising defibrillator implanted in her chest.
Aaron Collins was one of four firefighters who arrived from the Roslyn station. He said it was one of the most memorable CPR incidents of his career.
Mrs Scott appeared to have choked and, when the carrot popped out, Mr Collins was fairly confident of a successful outcome.
Rob Torrance, another firefighter there that night, said the early and continuous application of CPR was crucial.
Mrs Scott said her children were affected by how close she came to death and they talked about it openly as a family. About 18 months ago, she admitted she was an alcoholic, and had since stayed sober. She had also cut down on smoking.
Firefighters and ambulance staff were doing more than just their jobs — they were superheroes, she said.
❛ . . . it was finally time to acknowledge my
five years of survival