By Jed Lanyon
Former Launching Place resident Stephen Piercy is urging Yarra Valley residents to learn the symptoms of cardiac arrest after suffering his second heart attack at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in May last year.
Australians are given a one in ten chance of survival from cardiac arrest, as Mr Piercy considers himself to be “incredibly lucky” to still be alive. Even more so as cardiac arrest survival rates significantly worsened during the first wave of the pandemic.
Thankfully the 67 year old knew the warning signs and notified how wife, who called for an ambulance. He received an AED shock en route the hospital and has recovered well. Now he wants to make sure others are aware of the dangers of a heart attack and how to respond.
Mr Piercy shared his recollections from the experience.
“It started really around midday. We had an estate agent out to look at the house because we were selling it. I had a bit of a niggly pain in my chest… I didn’t think too much of it.”
Later in the afternoon he explained he felt more chest pain as well as pain from his arm.
“From that, I thought this isn’t right. We called the ambulance and I don’t remember, but the ambulance arrived within five or seven minutes but by that stage I was in a fair amount of pain and it was distressing.
“After that, I don’t really remember a lot, until I woke up in the ambulance at Seville.”
It was there where Mr Piercy was transferred into the care of the mobile intensive care ambulance (MICA).
“The next thing I remember was vaguely going down the freeway and then I woke up in the operating theater and the procedure was over.”
Healesville paramedic Laura Wirth described Mr Piercy as “phenomenally lucky” to have realised his symptoms and to have experienced his cardiac arrest in the care of trained paramedics.
“What happens in those first few minutes makes the biggest difference,” said Ms Wirth. “So if someone sees you go into cardiac arrest, they do CPR and they put on a defib, your chances of survival goes all the way up to 70 per cent.”
The latest Victorian Ambulance Cardiac Arrest Registry report found that 76 per cent of cardiac arrests occur within the home, while two out of every three patients are males.
Mr Piecy urged older males not to be stubborn in ignoring any potential symptoms.
“I didn’t down a Quick-Eze thinking I had indigestion. My wife’s step father, he was downing Quick-Eze not realising he was having a heart attack and he died,” he said.
“People my age, it’s typical of what they do, they think ‘I’ll be right mate’ but it’s the wrong attitude. You’ve got to change your attitude towards these things. You’ve got to realise any symptom. The pain can be in your neck, it can be in your jaw and it’s mainly in the left arm but you can have it in the right arm.”
Ms Wirth said that those were the classic symptoms of impending cardiac arrest but that they could vary as well.
Ms Wirth and other local paramedics will continue to educate local community groups about the issue as part of the Healesville Heart Safe Program and will be present at local farmer’s markets with the goal of improving cardiac survival rates. Ms Wirth urges locals to download the GoodSAM app
“If someone is experiencing cardiac arrest and a triple zero call is made. Straight away, the app goes ping and the three closest people to that cardiac arrest get notified on their phones and are asked to help.
“We would love anybody and everybody to sign up for the GoodSAM app.”
The app also highlights the closest 24/7 accessible AEDs. There are seven located in Healesville and surrounds as Ms Wirth asks Healesvillians to know where the closest AED is to home.
Healesville community groups are able to contact Ms Wirth to learn more about performing CPR by reaching out to healesville.teammanager@ambulance.vic.gov.au
