"Thank you for saving my life"

I was brought in to the Cardiac Unit by emergency ambulance at 85 mph with full blues and twos in the afternoon of Sunday 11 November.

My daughter had just arrived to visit and we had sat down to chat when I recognised the symptoms of a probable heart attack and asked her to call an ambulance.

In case you're wondering how I came to know the symptoms I should mention that I had been involved in getting a Council grant for the cost of a public defibrillator outside the Activity Centre of Age UK East Grinstead & District so had researched what to look out for if one of our members had a heart rpoblem.

I had not epxected to need a defibrillator myself!

The ambulance crew were magnificent and stabilised me en route to the hospital, and I was rushed into surgery here a stent was fitted to my aorta.

For obvious reasons I wasn't aware of most of what was going on until later when I wokeup in the cardiac ward, but I do recall a brief moment of awareness that I was about to go through a black hole and felt at the last moment a tremendous THUMP that stopped me going further,

That must have been one of the two times that I was told later that my heart had stopped in mid-operation so is worthy of recognition for the swift action taken that saved my life.

I want to place on record my profound gratitude to the surgical and nursing teams that looked after me until I was able to return home late yesterday afternoon.

I can't have been an 'easy' patient on the ward, because I came in with the known condition of two strictures inmy urethra whch meant that I kept needing to urinate but couldn't.

Again, my deepest thanks to all concerned - including my daughter who phoned for the ambulance and stayed with me until I was in the ward after a successful operation.

John Prigent FCIS