Checking on her daughter in the middle of the night, Sarah Edmonds suddenly felt short of breath. A healthy 31-year-old mum, she had to grab onto her little girl Arabella’s bed for support. She tells The Mirror: "I remember a shortness of breath and trying to support myself on the end of her bed.” Just four then, Arabella started giggling, thinking Sarah was playing a game. Far from it: she was in cardiac arrest.
According to the British Heart Foundation, more than 30,000 heart attacks happen outside a hospital setting across the UK each year. Sadly, fewer than one in 10 victims survive, due to lack of information about life-saving CPR. And an alarming 51% of us would be reluctant to try CPR on a loved one, for fear of harming them - which is particularly worrying when eight out of every 10 cardiac arrests happens at home.
When Sarah - on furlough from her recruitment job at the time - collapsed in December 2020, during the pandemic, luck was on her side. Normally her husband James, now 40, sleeps wearing earphones but on this occasion, Arabella’s laugh woke him. Seeing Sarah, now 36, James, who says he’d seen enough sports documentaries to grasp the seriousness of the situation, sprang into action, performing CPR. Sarah of Burgess Hill, West Sussex, says: “The air ambulance was out on another job and we’re a good half an hour away from our nearest hospital, so James was doing CPR on me for 20 minutes before the paramedics arrived.”.
When paramedics arrived, Sarah had to be dragged into the hallway and shocked several times with a defibrillator before she started breathing again. Then her heart stopped again in the ambulance. She continues: “James’ parents came to collect Arabella and he passed her to them over the bannisters to shield her from what was happening. Then he wasn’t allowed to come with me to the hospital because of Covid.”.
Sarah was put into an induced coma to give her body the best chance of survival. When she eventually came to she felt consumed by fear. “Everyone was wearing masks and full PPE, I was so disorientated that I thought I’d been kidnapped,” she remembers. “I was trying to pull out all the wires so I could escape. I couldn’t really take in anything they told me, so kept asking the same questions over and over again. Eventually, they let James come to see me because I was so distressed.”.
After running inconclusive tests, Sarah’s medical team were convinced she must have taken drugs, because there was no obvious cause of her cardiac arrest. They wanted her to have an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) fitted, which works like a pacemaker and shocks the heart if it develops an arrhythmia. Sarah was reluctant, admitting: “It was a vain reason if I’m honest. I was 31 and didn’t want this big lump of metal inside me. But James pretty much said to me, ‘I can’t go through that again and we don’t know what caused it, so if you’re coming home with me, you’re having the ICD put in.”.
It was just as well that she agreed, because six months later her heart went into cardiac arrest at home - and luckily was corrected by the device. Recovery has been a slow process and Sarah knows it took a toll mentally as well as physically. “Pretty much all of my ribs were broken, which was painful, but thank god James did it because that CPR saved my life,” she says. “I do feel like I have some PTSD, and the guilt of putting my husband and child through that was horrendous.”.
Arrabella, who could only wave to her mum through a fire exit at the hospital, was “so brave” and delighted to have Sarah back home. "There were a lot of happy tears, to be home together. Every time I look at her face I feel so thankful to be here. I’ll always be grateful for what James did - I feel so lucky,” says Sarah. “Watching Arabella grow from four to eight and all those changes, I’m constantly thinking, ‘I might not have been here to see that.’ I definitely was one of the lucky ones, and now I have to make the most of that.”.
British Heart Foundation chief executive Dr Charmaine Griffiths says: "No matter your relationship status, everyone needs to know CPR. Our Heart Month survey found that people’s fear of hurting someone could prevent them from giving CPR, which could be the difference between life and death. Doing something is always better than doing nothing and through RevivR, we’ve made it easier than ever to learn. It only takes 15 minutes to learn CPR, and could be the greatest gift you give to someone you love.".
If someone is in cardiac arrest, they collapse suddenly without warning and will be:. unconscious. unresponsive. not breathing or not breathing normally – this may mean they’re making gasping noises. If you see someone having a cardiac arrest:. phone 999 immediately and start CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation). Use a defibrillator if one is available. The British Heart Foundation is keen for people to learn CPR in as little as 15 minutes through its RevivR tool.
