My mate is 34. He's been juggling 2 jobs (both driving) in order to try to make ends meet and he has turned into a big stress-head. On Friday he was chatting to a friend at a burger van when he felt ill and collapsed.
His heart stopped beating but thanks to the efforts of the Quick Response Paramedics he was resuscitated. Unfortunately it happened again. They were able to bring him back once more and managed to get him into an ambulance. His heart stopped beating yet again, and the brilliant ambulance crew brought him back to life a third time.
Upon arrival at hospital things looked very very bad indeed. The consultant branded him "the illest person in this hospital" and said it would be very lucky if he made it through the night and if he did, with the amount of time he'd spent effectively dead, he might be brain-damaged.
They shipped him off for some special groundbreaking treatment where the body and brain are cooled so as to minimise any potential damage. Once he had been in there (for the best part of a day if I remember correctly), he was gradually brought back up to temperature in order to wake him up. Bearing in mind he was expected to be brain-damaged, the sight of seeing him waking up and asking where he was then saying "Where's Leah?" literally made the nurses burst into tears of joy.
He is still having a few issues with short term-memory. He asked me the same question 4 times this evening over the course of about an hour, but this much better than yesterday where it was every minute or so, and it's likely to continue to improve each day.
I have nothing but praise for the brilliant Paramedics and Medical Teams who effectively have kept the Andy I know and love pretty much as he used to be, but now hopefully less-stressed. Thankfully he has no memory of the events at all.
We all like to critcise the NHS, but not today. They have done an AMAZING job.
