A COVENTRY woman has said that ‘Thank You’ will never be enough, after ambulance staff saved her husbands life.
Donna Walker and her husband Dennis were at home enjoying their evening meal on the March 23, this year when all of a sudden Dennis collapsed.
As a healthcare assistant at a local hospital, Donna recognised he was in cardiac arrest and immediately called 999 before commencing CPR.
Two ambulances from Coventry responded to the call within five minutes of the call and immediately started advanced life support.
After delivering a number of defibrillation shocks, and eventually managed to restart Dennis’s heart.
Dennis was blue lighted to University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire where he spent several weeks receiving treatment for the underlying cause of his cardiac arrest; acute myocarditis – inflammation of the heart muscle.
He has made a full recovery with no detrimental ill effects and was discharged about a month later.
Donna and Dennis, contacted the Trust’s Patient Experience Team in May to say thank you and were invited to Coventry Hub on the October 25 to be reunited with the four staff who came to their aid that day.
Donna said: “Dennis is only here today, due to the fantastic care of the NHS – however, it is without any doubt that Dennis only survived because of the care and skill from the ambulance service that got Dennis going again at home when he collapsed.
“Without them, Dennis wouldn’t of even made it to hospital.
“To say ‘Thank-you’ will just simply never be enough to ever repay what you did for Dennis, myself and family that night –and for that, we will all be forever grateful to you wonderful people.”
Coventry operations manager, Steve Hargreaves, who organised the reunion for the couple, added: “It was a very special, moving moment for the couple to finally meet and speak to the people that, in their opinion were angels.
“Dennis remembers nothing of the night he collapsed, but, for Donna, it’s a night that she’ll never forget.
“The crews were very quick to praise the actions of Donna as her quick thinking and CPR made such a difference to her husband’s outcome too.
“This case is an incredible example of success in the face of very low odds of surviving an out of hospital cardiac arrest without any health deficit.”
Dennis’s employer UNIPART in Coventry are training all of their employees in CPR and also plan to purchase a defibrillator in the near future.
Training which has already helped to save another life after an employee performed CPR on a neighbour who thankfully also survived.
