Mervyn’ So I rang NHS Direct and they said that. They asked me what was wrong and different things and then they said, Well we’ll talk to the doctor and he’ll probably, he will get back to you very shortly and he will tell you then what to do. So I waited and the doctor rang me and I again I gave him all the symptoms and he said, I think what we’ll do is

I’ll ring the hospital for you and they will send paramedics down to check you over. The paramedics arrived I would imagine 15 minutes, 15 to 20 minutes later and they checked me over and they then decided that they would take me up to my local hospital. And they, whilst I was in the ambulance I believe they put the spray under my tongue and they also
Did an ECG?

Mervyn’ Yeah I think they did an, yeah they did an ECG and they also. What did they give me?

Mervyn’s wife’ Took some blood.

Mervyn’ Oh yeah they took some blood. On the way in the ambulance up to the hospital I felt violently sick. And we arrived at the hospital and I can’t remember much what happened then. Everything was very vague so I’d probably been given something that probably dulled me a bit.

They wired me up to the ECG monitor [in the ambulance] which actually goes straight through to the coronary care unit at the hospital so at the coronary care unit the Sister there could see whether or not it was anything wrong with my heart which she could see it was, so when I got to the hospital it was just straight to coronary care;

In coronary care it was just, everything happened so fast and the team were, just working on you like from all directions, theres a doctor, theres nurses, you know, they’re taking blood, they’re doing this, they’re doing that. So that all happened so, so fast and some of it was like a bit of a blur as well;

I can’t really recall everything that happened while I was actually in coronary care. All I know is that they worked really fast to get me stable. So that’s when, you know, they actually realised that I was having a heart attack and just spoke to me obviously to make sure that they were going to give me the correct drugs, just asked me a few questions and, basically, that’s all I can remember there for a little while because then I was just in a daze;

It felt like I was drifting and I just recall people and, I didn’t, I wasn’t actually unconscious but I think I might have been drifting in and out while I was in coronary care. So, but then they got me stable and then, over the next few days in coronary care it was, obviously they just wanted me to rest and get better the best that I could;

They did an echo of my heart which, there was some slight damage to my heart but not a great deal of damage to my heart. And then, before they’d let me come home I had to go on a sort of like it was a stress test, they call it, where I just had to go on a treadmill and be all wired up and monitored up to, to see whether my heart got into any difficulty, which it did after so many minutes of doing exercise;

So they decided then that I’d have to have an angiogram and I had to wait a few months to have the angiogram and it, and when I had the angiogram they decided that because of one of my arteries was narrowed 90% that I would benefit from having an angioplasty and, and a stent;

The ambulance also took an ECG and that ECG was sent through to the hospital. This ECG was probably the most important because the doctors that were going to operate on me later were able to see the information of what my heart was doing at the time I entered the ambulance. Thirty minutes later I was laid in the emergency room at the [Hospital name]. They were very good, everyone was there, I had a specialist, there were doctors and there were nurses. They explained to me the problem with my heart and the fact that they wanted to do an antiplasty
Angioplasty?

Angioplasty as soon as possible as this would then not damage the heart any more than it had been damaged by my heart attack.

They explained that my heart had had; the blood flow in my heart had actually in two cases nearly blocked completely. It was channelling through a different channel to make my heart continue to; the longer they left this procedure the longer, sorry, the larger the damage to my heart, that is how it was explained to me which is why I had absolutely no objections to anything they said and to be honest because obviously I knew of people who had had heart attacks and to what they’d suffered and I had no doubts about having that operation on that day, no doubts at all because they explained it in such a way that if it left, if I left it any longer the damage could increase. They needed to do it immediately, the sooner they do the operation after a heart attack the less damage. The longer they leave it then the damage can increase.

I signed the acceptance form and within thirty minutes I was in the operating theatre. The operation was very easy for me probably than it was for the doctors. The operation was done with local anaesthetic which was fantastic. The actual stents were fitted through my groin and through my wrist, the wrist one being one that they needed to take because of the angle they wanted to come in from the heart. The pain, there was very little soreness afterwards when obviously the local anaesthetic wore off. While I was in the operating theatre I was able to watch what they were doing. It was very interesting to see my own heart on a screen and something moving within it and it was reassuring in some respects that something was being done. I was still not certain I’d had a heart attack that was probably the worst thing. I was being operated on for something that I had not had real symptoms for. After the operation I was taken back to the cardiac ward; in the cardiac ward excellent set of nurses who were there at all times, they looked after me. I was put on a drip primarily because of obviously I had not had anything to eat and the, obviously dehydrated a little during the day. I’d also picked up a chest infection which they say I had before I went in which they treated with antibiotics.

And of course everything started happening then, I was put on drips and clot busters and pain killers and everything were administered, quite a flurry of activity. And within twenty minutes I felt as right as rain, I felt oh you know I can go home now but they wouldn’t let me [laughs].

I stayed in under observation in A & E for about six hours and this was through the night. They called my wife who arrived with one of my daughters with her partner in the early hours of the morning and stayed with me for some while and were rather surprised to see me sitting up feeling quite bright and cheerful wondering what the hell all the panic was about. They went, I started pressing them about being discharged.

They said that in fact I’d had a major heart attack and it was probably as a result of my diabetes that I was not feeling any pain other than general discomfort. The following morning I was admitted to the cardiac ward.

Was it a chest pain?

Not really, it was as if there was a mouse running up my chest, it was a most peculiar feeling, as if there was something just going like that, up my chest. And it was just a little pain that ran up, most peculiar feeling, and that was really all I was getting and I didn’t feel right, I didn’t feel right at all.

So I was taken, my wife took me in the car this time to the hospital, went again to the Accident Unit and they were very good. As soon as I mentioned heart problems in the reception I was straight through to the doctors area. They did, they put the tests on me, they said ‘yes, you’re in trouble, and they took me through to the local CCU which is at that hospital. And they said, ‘yes, you’ve had a heart attack.

They weren’t sure whether it was the first time or whether it was Wednesday or whether Wednesday was a prelim to it or whether it was three oclock in the morning.

They said, ‘unfortunately, because if it was three oclock in the morning which they were beginning to think it was, I couldn’t have this clot busting drug which everybody gets and you should have within the first hour or so. So I just stayed in the CCU, they put me on warfarin and all the usual sort of drugs and looked after me really.

I was then ushered into a cubicle. There was a consultant immediately present, as well as nurses. A lot of things then happened very quickly. But one of the things that needed to happen I think, was for the consultant to explain (a) what had happened to me but (b) what was required.

When he said I was having a heart attack, that the next few hours were crucial and what was really important, if possible, was to try and attack the clot that would be in my, the part of the heart that the clot would be in. I’m not physiologically terribly well tuned I’m afraid.

He explained, I mean I was very impressed actually because he squatted down and spoke to me at my level. He explained that there were risks attached to this process, which I think is called thrombolysis. There was a one percent risk of spontaneous bleeding, which I said is hardly, that I’m not really concerned about that.

He said there was also a one percent risk of stroke. But he obviously pointed out the risks of not taking this treatment were much more significant. And that if it could be effective early enough, it could minimise the long term damage to my heart muscle. So I clearly was happy to agree.

They offered me the clot buster drug but I declined. I didn’t want to take the risk and as the heart attack had already happened, and I judged that it wasn’t too bad, I just didn’t think I needed the clot busting drug, so I didn’t have it.

I asked what the risks were and he said you could haemorrhage because obviously it’s going to thin your blood down and you could haemorrhage from your brain and I said, ‘Well, what’s the worst scenario?’ and he said, ‘Well, death. [laughs] and I thought, ‘well I don’t really want a brain haemorrhage.

I thought, ‘I’ve had a heart attack, or I’m having a heart attack or whatever’ and to me it didn’t feel that bad because I didn’t have the crushing pain. That’s all I’d got to go by really, and nobody could make the decision, only me. That’s what I decided.

I understand by this time, I was totally unconscious. I understand from my wife that the medical staff were waiting at the door to take me in on to the stretcher and straight up the corridor and they did indicate to her, ‘Don’t, well be running up this corridor,’ because that particular hospital had a very long incline passageway to the cardiac unit and said, ‘don’t run, well have to run.

Apparently they had all of the equipment on there. Took me up to the ward and I knew nothing of this, this was what was related to me by my wife. The first thing I recall was the following morning, roughly about seven to half past, I couldn’t say exactly.

I came round and I remember saying to my wife, ‘You know I feel a wee bit better,’ and at that time I was in a cubicle near to the nurses station and then my wife and my daughter appeared because my wife had stayed all night and then thought now weve got to get [my] daughter.

So she came down and they came in again and was standing just outside of the curtain and then they allowed them to come in again to see me because the doctors were there and they had come in to see me and just at that time when they came in, I said, ‘I’m going to be sick.

And I did, I vomited and immediately, as it happened the doctors were still there, virtually at the end of the bed, and they ushered my wife and my daughter out and then I lost conscious again.

Came round and by this time they were making arrangements to transfer me to a hospital [in the next county], on [in the next county] which specialises in heart conditions.

And of course off I went and between leaving the hospital and the [specialist] hospital, from time to time I came around a little bit. I can remember the driver making certain remarks about people being in his way [laughs] and then in to hospital. And as I say, I sort of lost consciousness from time to time, well most of the time actually on the journey.

I can remember being taken out and in to the hospital, going up the corridor and straight through from the ambulance, up the corridor and in to the operating theatre where they started to treat me. By this time I was sort of more unconscious than awake. I was in the theatre for three and a half hours.