Welcome to Dr. Warrick's podcast channel. Warrick is a practicing cardiologist and author with a passion for improving care by helping patients understand their heart health through education. Warrick believes educated patients get the best health care. Discover and understand the latest approaches and technology in heart care and how this might apply to you or someone you love. Hi, my name is Dr. Warrick Bishop and welcome to my podcast and videocast station and today I'm absolutely delighted to have with me Angela Paris who's a registered nurse who's been specially trained in cardiac and intensive care nursing and has a special interest in the holistic well-being of patients who are going through a cardiac health journey. Angela's all the way from country New South Wales Joining me today, thank you so much for being here, Angela. Thank you, Warrick. Thank you, Dr Bishop, for reminding me. Angela, for today, you're more than welcome to call me Warrick. Okay. Look, Angela, what I thought I'd like to do is ask you to share with me a story that you've touched on that's... occurred as part of your own personal experience in cardiology and the amazing coincidences that can occur. And I'm not going to say too much because I know a fair bit of the story, but if I recall, there was a resuscitation that you were involved in. Can you tell me more about that? Yes, Warrick. It was late 1990s that I was working in intensive intensive care unit in one of the leading teaching hospitals in sydney and after a very busy evening shift i was trying to slip through the back door to the car park it was about four to midnight when the supervisor came and said angela we need you we have a cardiac arrest in emergency department so i went back to the intensive care unit i sort of grabbed the doctor i said you're coming with me we're going to resuscitate someone in emergency So when we got there, there was a young man, probably in his late 30s, early 40s, with ambulance officers and nurses around performing CPR. So we took the consultation and we gave him all the life support drugs, defibrillated him many times and was unsuccessful. He kept going back into a ventricular fibrillation. So we worked on him for about 40 minutes and the doctor was happy to call it off and pronounce him dead. So he said, you know, the ambulance officers had worked on him prior to bringing him to the hospital and we've already done 40 minutes of resuscitation. He's not responding. Angela, what I'll add in there for the people who are listening who may not be... who almost certainly wouldn't have had this experience, is it's an incredibly emotionally charged situation where we, as the medical team, we have to know really when enough is enough. You can't resuscitate someone for 24 hours, 36 hours a week. It becomes silly, if you like. But similarly, we can't just give up after 30 seconds. because we can resuscitate people after several minutes. And so there is a time where someone who's responsible for that cardiac arrest has to make, as you're referring to, a call and say, look, we're going to stop now for what appears to be the likelihood that we just can't bring this person back. So it's a big deal. So go on, keep telling us more. It is a very emotional, as you said, it's a very emotional decision you have to make in this life. So when he asked me, I just said to him, could you please give me one more chance? And I said, all right. So I put the paddles on his chest and gave him one last shot, which reverted him to sinus rhythm, sinus tachycardia, and he had a cardiac output. Wow. So it was just... Listening to you puts the hair up on the back of my neck. I can't begin to imagine how you felt, but there must have been serious elation, adrenaline, elation. Amazing. It was amazing. I guess the important thing was that he'd had good CPR up until that point. because with good CPR, good compression of the heart, there's a very good chance he may well have had good perfusion to his brain and therefore a good recovery. Tell me more about how he went, Angela. Exactly. So at that time, we stabilised him, took him to intensive care unit, organised a bed for him, admitted him. But it was about after two o'clock when I left the hospital, but all the way home, I was thinking, Did I do the right thing? Would he have brain damage? Was this the right decision? So it really couldn't, you know, kept me awake that night. And a couple of days later, when I came back to the hospital, I could see this lady calling me to the room. And she said, Angela, I want to thank you for saving my husband's life. And he was sitting up there having a cup of coffee. tea and I was just amazed to see him sitting there. He did blame me for burning his chest. That sort of stuff brings tears to your eyes. It does, it does. It's very emotional and actually what was more emotional was that evening his daughter walked in her bridle. to see the father. So this cardiac arrest happened two, three days before his daughter's wedding. Wow. So that was very emotional. Unbelievable. She was so happy to at least have the father, even though he couldn't walk her down the aisle, but he was alive. So it was very important to her to come and see him. And that was fine. Four years later, a man was brought in from emergency department. He was taken to one of the rooms in intensive care unit. And the nurse who brought him came to me and said, Angela, that man I just brought in wants to see you. So I walked there, walked into his room and he said, Angela, you saved my life four years ago. And I wasn't sure. which life I have saved. So I asked him what happened. He said, remember my daughter got married a couple of days later. I said, oh, right, yes. So he said, we talk about you all the time. We are so thankful. Everyone in my family knows you because we can't thank you enough. It was just an amazing feeling to know that you have changed someone's life with one shock. And he boasted that he had two grandkids as well. And so it was very, very happy family unit. Because we often forget that when we're dealing with a person in front of us, that person is not alone. They have a mother or a father, a brother, a sister, a loved one. They may have children. Yes. we're really not just dealing with an individual patient in isolation. So often we're dealing with an entire family unit and the obligations and the interconnectivity of that. And it sounds like this man in particular got the chance to see not only his daughter be married, but the chance to see his children's children, which is amazing. Yes. He was very happy. It does make you ask the what if question. What if you hadn't been there, Angela? What if that arrest hadn't continued? And it almost doesn't bear thinking about, does it? Exactly. So sometimes I think, what if I had left the hospital two minutes before that? Correct. And the supervisor didn't touch me. And what if I... agreed and said, yeah, let's call it off. So it really makes a huge difference to someone's life and a family with just one last attempt. So in 1995, this gentleman was back in hospital. Was that with his heart or something else, Angela? Yes, it was his heart. He continued to have heart problems. He's had stents put in and he's had bypass surgery. And that time he was there with another mild heart attack. And so about 18 years later, I had published my book called Loving Your Heart. And I was invited to talk about this book at the local library. As you know, I'm very passionate about helping people, about learning about the heart and knowing how to look after this important organ. So I was talking about this book and for some unknown reason, I shared this story about this man from that day. And I just said, you know, it all depends whether you're at the right place at the right time. And this is what... happened to one man you know and I could see two people talking at the back of the audience and I said am I talking about somebody you knew? He got up and he said no Angela you're talking about me that was 18 years ago that you saved my life. He came to the front and we were very very emotional. Everybody in the audience had tears in their eyes just to see that, you know, how emotional he was to see me again. Well, honestly, Angela, I'm tearing up just hearing that. That's beautiful. Yes. And you look like you're tearing up as well. I know. Every time I talk about it, I tear up because I just can't believe how emotional. That's an amazing story. And what an opportunity to make a difference, Angela, and such a wonderful difference. Yes. Congratulations to you. Thank you so much. And would you believe I've always kept thinking about him. And the other day I was going through my computer database and I came across his mobile number. So I thought, But it's about 30 years ago now. But I'll just give a call and see whether he's around. And I rang the number and a female, a woman answered the phone. So I introduced myself. I said, I'm Angela. I used to work in this hospital. She said, oh, would you like to talk to my husband? And this is 30 years on and he was still there. He came on the phone. He said, I can't believe you've rung me. He said, I've been thinking about you. And in fact, my daughter came to me last, youngest daughter came to me last week and said, Angela, I'm sorry, Dad, can I talk to that nurse who saved your life? Have you got her number? And I just, I teared up. I said, really? I said, you're... you're more than welcome to give my telephone number to her. So she would have been 10 years old, probably 10, 15 years old, probably at that time when he had the heart attack. What an extraordinary story. Family. He said he's had a heart transplant 13 years ago. Wow. Unbelievable. And he's still going. He's still got a lot of, a bit of heart failure, some kidney failure, but he said, I'm so grateful for what you did. And he said, I actually go and talk to new grad doctors now about how he was saved. So it's an amazing story. I just, I feel when I think of that, you know, If you look at it spiritually, I feel that that was my purpose, was to give somebody 30 years of extension of life. I feel that I fulfilled that. What an exceptional gift to be able to give someone, Angela. Look, I'm going to have to wrap it up there because we've really covered a fair bit of time. Yes. But thank you so much for sharing that. I know that anyone listening to this will be moved by it. I'm a bit teared up from it because it's an amazing story. And the chance, the tangible opportunity to really know that you've made a difference in someone's life like that is extraordinary. And I think it's why we do our job. And for this man, such thin threads and such a difference, his alternate path would have been so different had it not been. for you and your belief and hope. So congratulations on such a great input to someone's life. Thank you. Thank you for sharing. Thank you. I'm going to say goodbye now. For those, I hope you got something out of this beautiful story. Thank you for joining us. Till next time, look after yourselves and please don't die from a heart attack. Goodbye. You have been listening to another podcast from Dr. Warrick. Visit his website at drWarrickbishop.com for the latest news on heart disease. If you love this podcast, feel free to leave us a review.
