A Second Chance at Life

On 28 August 2011 I died! Yes, my heart went into ventricular fibrulation, I stopped breathing and by all intents and purposes, I died...

And if it wasn't for my wonderful partner Diana, I would not be alive to create this post. At half past four in the morning of the 28th Diana suddenly woke to my strange sounds. A cross between a snore and a gasp. She saw that my eyes were open and tried to rouse me. Nothing...

Immediatly  she sprung into action and called for he daughter to call for an ambulance while she tried mouth to mouth resucitation. The medics talked her through CPR and counted out the heart presses on speakerphone.

Eventually the paramedics arrived and shocked me three times with their electronic pads. They took me down two flights of tricky stairs to an awaiting ambulance, where they worked on me with an intubular air system. Later we learned that out of every 300 external intubular events only 7 survive. I was one very lucky survivor.

After a couple of days I eventually awoke, everyone was hoping that I had little brain damage through lack of oxygen. Fortunatley I didnt appear any worse for wear but I did have a few minutes short term memory loss for a few hours.

Later it was decided that my heart was suffering damage which was termed Dilated Cardio Myopathy and I needed to have fitted to my heart a defibrillator that would check any irregular beats and if necessary take over and regulate the beats per minute. And if the worst came to the worst would shock my heart and jump start it into life.

I came out of hospital on the 15th September 2011, after having my birthday on the 2nd, or as I think of it now as re-birth.

A second chance at life.

Tim Hollingworth