Hill repeats and heart attacks

Tuesday 16 April 2013

Hill repeats and heart attacks

19 March 2013 was one of those 'hit the snooze button a couple of times' days. I usually hit the road around 04:30 on hill repeat days but I was feeling a bit lazy and only got going around 05:15. My usual training routes are on the dirt roads outside town but I've found a hill on our club's TT route that's not too steep and just the right length for my hill repeats session.

After my warm up run, I stopped close to the start of the climb to tie my shoelaces and greeted a couple walking at quite a brisk pace. I attacked the first rep with great enthusiasm and as I sprinted around the first corner I noticed someone sitting in the road. As I got closer I realised that something terrible had happened. It was the couple I had greeted just minutes earlier. The lady was holding her husband's head, crying out for help. She told me that he complained about a chest pain, said that he was dying and collapsed.

The sense of dread and total panic that I experienced at that moment was immense. I pumped his chest until his breathing calmed. I didn't know much about heart attacks and because he was breathing I suspected that he had suffered a stroke. His wife mentioned that he had high blood pressure and that she didn't have a phone on her. I ran around like a crazy person, knocking on doors and searching for someone with a phone.

Some residents came out to help and phoned an ambulance. With the help of another gentleman we turned him on his side and lifted his chin to ease his breathing. When I overheard someone trying to explain our location to the ambulance service operator I realised that we would be waiting for a while. To calm his wife and myself I ripped my Garmin heart rate monitor belt off and stuck it on his chest. I figured we might as well utilise technology at hand and monitor his heart rate while we wait. What I monitored was quite scary and not the reading I'm used to on my watch. His heart rate was fluctuating between 70 and 100 beats per minute.

I'm not sure how long it took for the ambulance to arrive but it felt like an eternity. If I have to guess it must have been more than 20 minutes.. When the ambulance arrived eventually, the paramedics came sauntering down the road! They must be desensitized or maybe they were tired after a long shift. Their excuse for taking so long was that the national number was dialed and not the local one.. They also blamed the wrong address as we were in Enterprise street and not Laser street as indicated. We were on the corner of Laser and Enterprise street.

Needless to say I didn't finish my hill session and ran straight home. Rattled! I checked in at the hospital and introduced myself properly. The lady's name is Beatrice Galloway and her husband Koos was in the operating theatre in a critical condition. He had suffered a 'traumatic aortic rupture'. I believe the chance of survival is quite low and according to the doctors at the Medi Clinic it was a miracle that he survived. Had he arrived there a few minutes later he would have been dead. I heard that his chest was ripped open the moment he got there!

Fortunately I was right when I kept telling Beatrice that he would be OK and that he's a tough man while we were sitting on the cold tar, waiting for his saviors in the missing ambulance. Beatrice phoned regularly and kept me updated. I even finished my hill session that afternoon, celebrating life, youth, good health and fitness :)

Koos has recovered extremely well and is walking up to 25 minutes a day again. He whispers at the moment as his throat is a bit sore from the pipes and I've noticed that he's lost a bit of weight as well.

I received the following email a week ago (thanks Helen)

Hi Toy

We heard about your rescue story where you used your Garmin Heart Rate Monitor to check a man’s heart rate who had collapsed!

We would love to send you a goody bag for being such a great ambassador!

Please send me your physical address, contact name and contact phone number and I will make sure to send it.

Take care

Jenna

Jenna Chisnall

Marcomms Manager Sub-Saharan Africa
Garmin Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd

Thanks for the nice goodie bag Garmin South Africa :)

In the few years I've been running I've participated in races where young men have died from heart attacks. This year two men died at the Ironman SA 70.3. I nearly became a statistic myself last year when I participated in the Num-num Trail Challenge with a chest cold. I had to withdraw for the first time ever because my heart rate kept spiking while I was sitting down every few meters, in a canyon in the middle of nowhere.

We as fit runners take good health for granted. I urge all runners, young and old, to have their blood pressure, -sugar, cholesterol etc checked from time to time and to rest when ill.

To quote a character from The Godfather Part II -