A friend of mine walked out of his business yesterday, crossed the parking lot to go for a (group) bike ride from our local cycling shop and collapsed right there. Very luckily, for him, several of our cycling mates were also there. One called the ambulance, the other started CPR immediately and yet another (a medical doctor) helped.
The ambulance arrived within 4 minutes - this was right in the middle of town. They had to shock him twice to get his heart firing. Hauled off to Emergency dept at local hospital and then flown to Wellington where they inserted a stent this morning. I spoke with him this afternoon. He's OK, on the mend - should be out of hospital tomorrow.
Several things here worked perfectly in his favour: At least 3 people knew how to perform CPR correctly and did so within seconds of him hitting the deck. The ambulance that arrived was the one with the onboard defib machine and it was there in four minutes. If he had already been on his bike ride when this happened, he may have been 25km out of town and not in an area with mobile phone coverage. Had that occured, the outcome would have been very different.
Make sure you guys know what to do in an emergency. He said he had no warning. One second he felt fine, the next he was out. He did say that it would have been the perfect way to check out of this world. But perhaps not just yet!
Last edited by MarkJerling; 09-20-2018 at 05:50 AM.