Shock read: How text messages helped one woman cope when her husband’s heart suddenly stopped beating
When David’s heart stopped beating, Michelle lines, 37, found an unlikely source of comfort
Lying back on my bed, I scrolled through messages between me and my husband David. There were streams of texts telling each other we loved one another, chatting about work or our children, but now, as I read through them, they were bringing me close to tears – even the more mundane ones, like David asking me to pick up a pint of milk. Because, after 20 years together, I was so close to losing everything.
David and I had been together since I was 18 and he was 20, and I knew there was no other man for me. Our son Corey was born in June 2007, followed by William in August 2012, and when David and I got married a year later, it cemented us as the perfect family.
While David worked hard in the steel industry in Scunthorpe, I juggled looking after the boys with my job as a registrar. But we still made sure we spent time together as a family, going to the park where Corey and David would play football or out for a pub lunch. And David and I were determined to keep that spark in our marriage and would always send each other text messages throughout the day just to say we were thinking of each other.
A normal evening
On 9 April 2014, by the time David got in from work, I’d already put Corey, then seven, and William, two, to bed and we sat out in the garden chatting about our days. We weren’t out there long when David announced he was tired. ‘I’ll take the bins out and then I’m going to get an early night,’ he yawned. But moments after he left me in the garden, I got up to go inside and, as I reached the back door, I spotted David sprawled out on the patio down the side of the house. ‘David!’ I screamed, running to his side. Gasping for breath, trying to speak, he looked so scared as I kneeled beside him, clutching his hand. ‘It’s all going to be OK, I promise,’ I reassured him. I wanted to sob and scream, but a peculiar calmness took over my body. I knew it wouldn’t help if I panicked. The phone was in my pocket so I dialled 999. By now, David was losing consciousness and the operator started to guide me through CPR – something I’d never had to do before. ‘Stay with me, David,’ I begged. But within minutes, his eyes had rolled into the back of his head and his skin was turning blue. I was losing my husband in front of my eyes.
Finally starting to panic, I was relieved when a first responder arrived and took over chest compressions. And, at the first sign of the paramedics, I ran into the house. I couldn’t bear to watch. My calm facade collapsed as I fell to the floor, trying to stifle my cries so I didn’t wake the children. Shakily picking up my phone, I rang
‘I wanted to scream but a peculiar calmness took over’
David’s mum, Susan, who lived nearby, and told her to come straight over. As the paramedics continued to attempt to resuscitate David outside, all I could think was the children waking up and not having a daddy anymore.
A wave of relief
David was taken to Scunthorpe A&E where doctors continued to work on him. As Susan and I arrived, a consultant took us into a quiet waiting room. ‘I’m too young to be a widow,’ I whispered, desperately trying to read his expression, before he said the words that would change my life forever.
‘Your husband’s heart stopped beating for 55 minutes,’ the doctor explained. ‘We managed to bring him back, but he’s in a coma.’ But as the wave of relief rushed through me, a new form of grief came crashing in. ‘There’s a high chance he will be permanently brain-damaged,’ the doctor continued. I was terrified – I wanted David to wake up so much, but what if he wasn’t the man I knew? How could things have changed so suddenly? A doctor explained David’s collapse was caused by a heart condition. He had been diagnosed with it when he was 20, but aside from the daily tablet he'd had to take and the yearly check-ups, it had never been an issue. Neither of us had known the seriousness of the condition. That night I stayed by David's bedside, holding his hand and trying to find the right words to say to him. But, too upset, I struggled. So I took out my phone and began reading our text messages – ‘I love you,’ ‘Have a great day,’ ‘What’s for dinner?’ Tears welled in my eyes as I wondered if David and I would ever do something as normal as exchange text messages again. ‘Please give me back my husband,’ I sobbed into the darkness. The following day, as doctors and nurses bustled in and out, and friends and family came to visit, there wasn’t much time for me to be alone with David. Zoning out of my surroundings, I began typing a message to him. ‘The children need you. Please don’t leave us,’ I wrote. It sounds silly, but pressing send gave me comfort, like we were talking, even though it was one-sided. ‘I love you so much,’ I wrote again, a few minutes later.
In intensive care for the next three days, I continued sending David messages. Doctors said he was responding to the treatment, and on day four, they made a bid to wake him up.
Road to recovery
When he first opened his eyes, I’ve never felt so grateful or happier in my life. He couldn’t talk because of the tubes in his throat but I could see he recognised me. Of course we didn’t know the full extent of David’s brain damage, but when I brought Corey in the next day to see him and David held him in his arms and cried, I knew my husband was still there, I’d not lost a single part of him.
David was transferred to Leeds Hospital for tests, and was diagnosed with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, a rare form of heart disease with high risk of sudden death. He was fitted with an internal defibrillator and, within a few days, he was discharged and sent home.
Doctors explained he would need regular check-ups and that the boys would be tested for heart conditions too, but I was just so thankful that I still had my family.
When we were finally back home David and I looked through my text messages together. ‘I can’t imagine how scary it must have been,’ he said, his eyes filling with tears.
Those messages are more than just a few texts. To us they represent how precious life is and how things can change in an instant. They are there to remind me of how lucky I am.
‘What if david wasn’t the man I knew?’