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It was a Monday in mid-July. Daniel and wife Sarah had had a large pallet of wood delivered to their home as Daniel was building a shed in the backyard. Because the passage between their home and the neighbours was so narrow, the wood had been dropped off on the side of the road. This meant that Daniel needed to carry the wood from the road through to the backyard.

He asked nephew Grainger to help him move the wood. As Grainger explains, “it would have been a mammoth job if Daniel had to do it by himself”.

By the time Grainger arrived at Daniel and Sarah’s house, Daniel had already made a start on moving the wood.

To begin with, everything was fine. Grainger recalls that they were “just getting on with it, chipping away at the pile, occasionally chatting but just trying to get through it for the most part”.

There were no signs that Daniel was feeling unwell or any indication of what was about to happen.

Grainger says that Daniel “wasn’t struggling to move the wood. As a matter of fact, he was probably more efficient than I was!”.

“I thought he was making a joke”

Everything changed in an instant.

Grainger remembers dropping off another load of wood in the backyard. As he turned around to head back to the roadside pile, he saw Daniel “go down. He never really fell, he kind of just crumpled to the ground. He ended up lying on his back”.

Grainger wasn’t sure what was going on, as he explains: “I thought he was making a joke that he was tired from the work, so he was having a nap or something – Daniel jokes around a lot.”

Grainger started to move towards Daniel, as he called for Sarah.

“When I got to Daniel, it just looked like he was asleep, like he’d fallen asleep right then and there. It sounded like he was snoring.”

Sarah rushed over and “took one look at Daniel’s face and saw he wasn’t responding. I called 111 immediately. I started shouting at him to try to get him to come around.” 

Daniel suddenly jolted upright, gasping for air, before slumping unconscious against the wall.

Grainger believes it was at this moment that he realised what was going on – Daniel was experiencing a sudden cardiac arrest [the sudden loss of all heart activity].

Realising what was happening

Sarah rang 111 straightaway. She recalls telling the call taker – Carmen, a Wellington Free Ambulance Emergency Medical Dispatcher – that Daniel “had collapsed and they needed to come straight away. I could see that his face was changing colour and turning blue, and I was shouting that I thought we were losing him”.

Grainger remembers Carmen saying that they needed to get Daniel on his back.

Grainger recalls although Daniel is “about the same size as me, he felt so heavy. It took all my strength to get him onto his back”. Once on his back, Grainger remembers “looking at Daniel. It sounded like he was breathing, but I recognised it as agonal breathing [the gasping that people do when they’re struggling to breathe, which is usually a sign that the heart is no longer circulating oxygenated blood].

That’s when I knew for certain what was going on.”

Taking life-saving action

Just three weeks earlier, Grainger had learnt CPR which was a mandatory requirement for his job.

Although he’d never performed CPR [cardiopulmonary resuscitation – a vital life-saving action anyone can perform on a person experiencing a sudden cardiac arrest that gives them the best chance of survival] before, he remembered his training. 

Grainger recalls Sarah starting CPR on Daniel but then “I kind of snapped and realised I knew what I was doing” so he took over CPR.

“I remember the call taker counting for me - 1,2,3,4 - like a metronome. I was counting with the call taker to ensure I kept a constant rhythm with the compressions.”

Grainger continued CPR as Sarah stood on the roadside, waiting for Wellington Free, to make sure they could see where to come.

“I’ve never felt that sort of relief before”

Grainger remembers the first paramedic coming down the passageway: “I’ve never felt that sort of relief before. I was already exhausted and wasn’t sure whether what I was doing had done any good.”

As Wellington Free Ambulance paramedics began attending to Daniel, Grainger went out to the road to direct the other emergency services. 

Grainger recalls that “the response was so quick. I have no idea how long I was actually doing CPR, but very shortly after I began, the first paramedic showed up in a car [Intensive Care Paramedic Serah in a fully equipped quick response vehicle]. Then a fire engine and an ambulance arrived.

There were about five paramedics there in the blink of an eye, plus four firefighters. They were brilliant, they were all so assured and calm.”

Grainger cleared some of the wood to allow the paramedics more space to treat Daniel. He remembers that the paramedics were “so professional, fast-acting and effective. I can only imagine how stressful and demanding the work they do is, but you wouldn’t know it with how calm and assured their actions were on the day.”

“I know very little about how these things work, but the fact that Daniel can speak to me today is a testament to the quality of the work the paramedics do is. One of them came out to me shortly before they took him away in the ambulance and told me, very calmly, that they had got his heart beating again.”

Grainger “doubts Daniel would still be alive today had I not learnt CPR. I had no idea how to do CPR before that, or even how to recognise a sudden cardiac arrest. Because of the CPR training I was able to follow the necessary procedures and give him the CPR he needed while waiting for the ambulance to arrive.”

Emergency surgery and a ‘surprisingly swift’ recovery

Once at Wellington Hospital Emergency Department, Daniel underwent an emergency angiogram [an x-ray of the arteries in the heart] to identify the cause of the cardiac arrest.

As Sarah explains, “the team was able to identify where the blockage in Daniel’s heart was. Immediately after this, Daniel was taken to ICU [Intensive Care Unit] for surgery, during which he had two stents [short, wire mesh tubes that are fitted into arteries to keep them open in the future] put in.”

“After about three-four hours, he was out of surgery and in recovery in ICU where he spent the night.”

“The next morning, he was transferred to the Cardiology ward and was discharged two days after that.”

Daniel describes his recovery as “surprisingly swift”: 

“I noticed the benefits of the stents almost immediately. Key to my recovery has been the medication and my participation in a programme run by the folks at HeartWorks on Thorndon Quay. They run monitored exercise sessions where I’ve been able to work on strength and fitness in a safe environment.”

The life-saving impacts of CPR    

Daniel’s story highlights the importance of the chain of survival – the chain of events that must happen quickly to maximise the chances of survival from sudden cardiac arrest.

It begins with recognising what’s happening and calling 111. It includes prompt CPR, use of an AED [automated external defibrillator – a device that analyses the heart’s rhythm and, if necessary, delivers an electric shock to help the heart get back to its natural rhythm], and professional medical care.

Daniel is here today to share his story because the chain of survival was unbroken.

Anyone can learn life-saving CPR and how to use an AED, for free, through our Lloyd Morrison Foundation Heartbeat CPR training programme.

For now, Grainger says “I cannot thank everyone at Wellington Free enough. I know not all stories end as well as this one has, but I doubt any would have happy endings if it weren't for the work Wellington Free Ambulance does.”

“It was one of those nightmare situations”, Sarah says.

“Everything happened very quickly, and the overwhelming feeling was shock. We'll be forever grateful Grainger was with us that day and that he'd done CPR training. We know that's the reason Daniel is still with us. 

As for the teams from Wellington Free Ambulance and Fire and Emergency NZ, we couldn't have wished for a better group of people to come to the rescue. They were extremely efficient but also very compassionate.”

Daniel with some of his team of life savers, including (L-R) Emergency Medical Dispatcher Carmen, Paramedic Ari, Grainger, Daniel, wife Sarah, Graduate Paramedic Emerson, Shift Manager Mark and Head of Emergency Ambulance Services Kate.