Claire Brown – Monday 2nd December 2024 – 10.00am.
These are the words of a Coventry woman whose husband is alive today thanks to her actions and life-saving treatment by ambulance staff.
Donna Walker and her husband Dennis were at home enjoying their evening meal on the 23rd March 2024 when, without warning, Dennis suddenly collapsed. Donna, a Healthcare Assistant at a local hospital, quickly recognised he was in cardiac arrest and immediately called 999 before commencing CPR.
Two ambulances from the Trust’s Coventry Hub were responded arriving at the couple’s home within five minutes of Donna’s call. On scene they found Donna performing excellent CPR. They immediately started advanced life support, delivering a number of defibrillation shocks, and eventually managed to restart Dennis’s heart. He 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 was discharged about a month later and has now made a full recovery with no detrimental ill effects from his ordeal.
Donna and Dennis, who contacted the Trust’s Patient Experience Team in May to say thank you, were invited to Coventry Hub on the 25th October 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, said: “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. It not only showcases the incredible work the ambulance service and wider NHS provides but how vital it is to start CPR, like Donna did. The crew should rightly feel very proud and humbled that thanks to their dedication, training and professionalism, Dennis, Donna and their family are able to enjoy many more years together.”
As a direct result of Dennis’s cardiac arrest, his 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.
ENDS
Pictured L to R: Technician Karl Twynham, Donna Walker, Technician Deryce Goodwin, Dennis Walker and Paramedic Matas Danilevicius.