Life After Cardiac Arrest

Paul talks with cardiac arrest survivor Jamie Poole , an Australian in London. Jamie had his first cardiac arrest when he was just 20 years and outs his survival down to wearing a suit. After Jamie's first close call he gets an ICD and takes us through his experiences of having numerous appropriate shocks , of which he knows by the feeling that has become the 8 seconds of dying. Having a serious h...

Paul talks with consultant cardiologist Dr Sanjay Gupta about his social media contributions and in particular recent videos concerning the current Coronavirus (COVID19) pandemic. Dr Gupta takes us from his low-key start providing valuable information for cardiac patients to now having over 150,000 YouTube subscribers and with over 1.5M views on one video alone ! His recent videos have featured th...

Paul talks with mental health counsellor and therapist Liz Sharpe . Through her business Live Your LIfe Therapies , Liz helps people deal with various mental health issues including dealing with trauma. Liz presented a well received practical workshop at the Sudden Cardiac Arrest UK Guinness World Record Attempt which led her to go on and work at the Essex Cardiothoracic Centre treating patients a...

Paul talks with Gary Montague , who went from being in the CIA to the CEO of start-up HeartHero , who are bringing a new Automated External Defibrillator to the market. Gary talks about his childhood which ultimately is the motivation for starting this journey and he runs us through how he has gone from nothing to the position where they have a viable device which is ready for official testing and...

Paul talks with Kristian Webb, a Cardiac Physiologist and CEO of LOIS Medical a startup developing a new wearable device for those with an ICD. Kristian tells us of the story of how he got into Cardiac Physiology and his desire to help more people through various mediums such as books (as Carl Robinson) and courses (Medmastery) and more recently as part of a start-up. LOIS Medical is developing a...

Paul talks with fatigue expert Donna Malley who is an Occupational Therapist Clinical Specialist at the Oliver Zangwill Centre for brain injury rehabilitation. She has over 30 years of experience and has a keen interest in working with patients who experience fatigue after a brain injury. Amongst contributing to numerous studies she was also a co-author on the excellent Headway booklet - Managing...

Paul talks with the world-renowned clinical neuropsychologist Professor Barbara Wilson OBE . Amongst her many achievements, Barbara founded the Oliver Zangwill Centre for brain injury rehabilitation and also authored over 200 papers and 30 books on the subject. She has a wealth of experience regarding memory issues, which is one of the top post-arrest issues that survivors report. She talks about...

Paul talks with Professor Jerry Nolan , who is a consultant in anaesthesia and intensive care medicine at the Royal United Hospital, Bath and Honorary Professor of Resuscitation Medicine at the University of Bristol. He is also the current Chair of the European Resuscitation Council and in 2016 the American Heart Association awarded him the honourary title of "A Giant of Resuscitation". The conver...

Paul talks with the legendary and world-renowned cardiologist Professor Douglas Chamberlain CBE. Douglas is now aged 88 and started his journey into medicine in 1935 when as a 4-year-old he visited his doctor and saw something that intrigued him. From that point, he takes us through many humorous anecdotes of his life in resuscitation. This includes being at the inception of many important innovat...

Paul talks with cardiac arrest survivor and social psychologist Ted Guloien. Since his arrest during a half-marathon Ted has made many insightful and wise posts relating to his and others recovery. He has recently collated them and published them as a pamphlet (as he calls it) titled " Observations of a Sudden Cardiac Arrest Survivor or What I wish I'd been told when I was discharged ". A very int...

Paul talks with cardiac arrest survivor and Sudden Cardiac Arrest UK stalwart Gareth Cole. Gareth talks openly about his heart attack(s) and cardiac arrest and how it has affected his life. A failed attempt at returning to work, moving house, quitting his job, thoughts of suicide, causing a plane to have an emergency landing and how SCA UK has helped his recovery are just some of the subjects cove...

With the festive season almost upon us, Paul talks about gift ideas for survivors to aid in their recovery. Whilst survivors could be said to have had the best gift ever, he gives some suggestions that may give them a helping hand. He covers products available at the Sudden Cardiac Arrest UK shop , Dr Rongan Chatterjee and his books and podcast, Mindfulness, activities and therapy pets to name a f...

Paul talks with consultant cardiologist Dr Tom Keeble, about what happens in a catheter lab (cathlab). There are rules in the Cathlab, but fortunately it isn't the same as Fight Club so we can talk about them and Dr Keeble takes us through Angiograms , Angioplasty, Stents and the difference between an emergency patient an elective one. Dr Keeble is a consultant cardiologist and researcher at the&n...

Paul talks about why a hearts attack and a cardiac arrests are not equal. From a physiological point of view the events are quite different, a heart attack is a plumbing problem whereas a cardiac arrest is an electrical one. It should be noted that both need immediate medical attention but a cardiac arrest is perhaps the ultimate medical emergency as without immediate intervention the patient will...

Paul talks with likeable South African and cardiac arrest survivor Willem Pretorius about his ups and downs post arrest. Like an estimated quarter of survivors he lost his job after his event and struggled to get his life back to an even keel. Willem talks about his struggles, occupational therapy sessions and how becoming a member of SCA UK has helped his recovery such that he has recently g...

Paul talks with cardiac arrest survivor Jasmine Wylie who is a patient advocate and online community leader. Jasmine talks about her cardiac arrest which was at the young age of 24 and was caused by Long QT Syndrome (LQTS). She also cover her recovery and subsequent work as a patient advocate where she helps others on the road to recovery via online communities and beyond. Presented by Paul Swinde...

Paul talks about cardiac arrest sequelae. Sequelae is not a word that many people are familiar with, and even though it is very pertinent to sudden cardiac arrest survivors it’s probably not one they would have heard of before. It simply means a condition which is the consequence of a previous disease or injury and in survivors this could be down to a number of factors. Many survivors report havin...

Paul talks with consultant cardiologist Dr Tom Keeble, about building a better future for cardiac arrest survival with a number of recent projects he has been working on: the Sudden Cardiac Arrest UK #NotAlone event, the International Task force for Cardiac Arrest Recovery (ITCAR), Heartwize Essex and the forthcoming video #WhatJackDid aimed at encouraging teenagers to engage in CPR. Dr Keeble is...

Paul talks with cardiac arrest survivor Ingrid Gardner. From a nervous start, Ingrid first met others at a SADS UK conference back in 2017 , from there she progressed to attending other meeting-ups including the successful Guinness World Record attempt in June 2018 . At the end of September 2019 she played a role in bringing the SCA UK team to her beautiful home county of Rutland where she was one...

Paul talks with Doug Rachac who is a medical device patient educator and advocate. Prior to his own cardiac issues Doug was a Medtronic employer for many years working in a number of roles including training and education. Doug experienced a number of cardiac related blackouts and subsequently ended up with an ICD being implanted to protect him from further episodes and the possibility of a cardia...

Paul talks with Dr Katie Dainty , who is a qualitative and mixed methods scientist and is the Research Chair in Patient Centred Outcomes at North York General Hospital, Toronto and also a passionate advocate for bystanders in a cardiac arrest scenario - "the forgotten patient". She is currently undertaking research into understanding survivorship following Sudden Cardiac Arrest from both the patie...

Paul talks with Jayne Biggs, mother and lifesaver of her daughter Violet who had a cardiac arrest aged 7. She talks about her daughters event and how she has been driven by her families experience to set up the Heart 2 Heart charity in Norfolk to improve life saving skills in her local and wider community. In 3 years her charity has placed over 140 defibrillators and trained many hundreds of peopl...

Paul talks with cardiac arrest survivor Darren Nicholls. Whilst during a run as part of the Couch to 5K programme Darren had a cardiac arrest, and ended up spending 3 weeks in hospital and having a triple bypass operation. On discharge Darren was not content with just completing the Couch to 5K, and over the following months he finds super human strength and determination to complete many sporting...

Paul talks about meet-ups and the benefits of meeting others who have been through a similar cardiac arrest experience and the forthcoming #NotAlone event on 28th September 2019. The #NotAlone event is a great opportunity for survivors and others affected by a cardiac to get together and share their experience. The day also includes educational talks and presentations from experts on subjects that...

Paul talks with cardiac nurse and fitness coach Angela Hartley. Anglea is an Aussie ex-pat resident in the UK who through her company Clinical Exercise uses her cardiac and exercise expertise to help patients get the most from themselves post event. She is also active on social media with her Healthy Hearties channels and peer support group . The discussion covers a wide range of topics centered a...