Sally: My wife, Carole, went to bed about 10, and at about 11 o'clock at night I started to get what I thought was indigestion because I get that quite a bit. I had intense chest pain. It was like somebody had hit me with a metal bar across my back. I just kept taking Rennie - I think I got through a whole packet of them that night.
It would ease off slightly when I had a couple of Rennies. And then it got to 6am and I thought, I don't know what it is, but I can't get rid of it. I need to go and see my wife Carole, because she used to be a nurse. I went up to her and said, “I feel really bad,” and I was leaning over the bed. I couldn't stand up straight. I was in that much pain. She looked at me and immediately called 999.
Two male paramedics arrived and started doing an ECG, while I sat on the sofa, and then I can't remember anything until everything went pitch black. It was darker than any black I've ever seen.
Carole said my eyes rolled back and the paramedics pulled me to the floor, yanked off my t-shirt and started doing CPR and then they got the defibrillator and gave me one shock. I was down for about 5 minutes.
My daughter, Jade, arrived just as they finished using the defibrillator. Another male paramedic had also joined who was a heart specialist.
The next thing I remembered was being in the ambulance outside the house.
At the hospital, I was lying on the bed, and I felt this burning sensation down my arm. I shouted out, “You're burning me!” and the doctor said, “I'm saving your life.” And I was like, “Oh, I better shut up then,” and they put a stent in at 9:30 in the morning.
The whole thing was done within two hours. I died, they brought me back, they put the stent in.
I hadn't had any heart issues before 2020, so I didn't expect it. I was only fifty-three.
Afterwards, every time I had heartburn, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. But now I've got more used to it, and I have a GTN spray, so I use the Rennie and if that hasn't worked within five minutes, I use the spray and if that doesn't work, I'll call 999.
So that's sort of changed the way I see it now, but it still enters your head if it takes a bit of time for the Rennie to work because indigestion feels exactly the same as a heart attack.
It was three male paramedics in total who attended to me. When they were putting on the ECG wires, it did cross my mind that they were men, and they were lifting my boobs. Also, I'm a gay woman, so it's like... men don't touch me and then I've got three of them touching me.
But it never entered my head, this is not right or it doesn't feel comfortable because they were saving my life. It didn't matter to them whether I was male or female. They'd got a job to do. And if they had been anxious about me being female, I wouldn't be here.
Carole: The reason that I thought Sally was probably having a heart attack is that it wasn't the classic symptoms that men get. It was much more her pallor and her demeanour.
The signs of a heart attack can be really different, but not always in an obvious way. She felt slightly sick, but not overly sick. It was more that she was clammy and just generally not quite right.
A long time ago, I worked in Coronary Care Unit myself. Unfortunately, that many years ago, most women didn't get there in time. They didn't recognise it and would put it down to a muscle spasm, indigestion, overdoing it, or coming down with a bug. Then they'd collapse, and that would be it.
I have no doubt in mind that that if that ambulance hadn't been called when I called it, Sally wouldn't be here.
People shouldn't have that fear of stepping in just because it's a woman. If there's any suspicion that someone is unresponsive and not breathing normally, you just need to act. You should do it in the same way you wouldn't necessarily question it if it were a man.
Jade, who now volunteers for St John Ambulance said: When I got to the house, my mum was lying on the floor, a paramedic was dissolving some aspirin to give her. I sat her up, held her, and kept telling her to drink the aspirin. I had a fleeting thought, "She would hate this if she knew she had no bra or t-shirt on," but I didn't care. I was just glad she was awake and drinking the aspirin.
I hope people take away that it's OK to do what you need to do to save someone's life. My mum wasn't aware of what was going on at the time, and she wasn't aware that her T-shirt had to be cut off. If there had been any hesitation, she may not be here today. We are all so grateful to the paramedics who saved my mum's life.
