A woman who says her “children still have a mum thanks to everyone involved in my care,” has been reunited with the ambulance crews who responded in her time of need.
On the afternoon of 7 June 2024, 45-year-old Sian Deeks went over to her partner Daniel’s house. They were in the middle of a conversation when Sian started to lean against the worktop in the kitchen and became unresponsive – she had gone into cardiac arrest.
Speaking of that day, Sian said: “I would never have thought I’d have gone into cardiac arrest ever. You just never think it would happen to you. I don’t remember any of it, but Daniel said he was calling out to me, and I wasn’t responding to him.
“I’ve lived with heart failure for a few years now, so while he didn’t know it was a cardiac arrest, he had an inkling it was due to a complication with my heart. That’s when he put me in the recovery position and dialled 999.”
Daniel’s call was answered by Emergency Medical Advisor Tim Higham-Jones, who advised Daniel to lay Sian flat on her back and perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) until ambulance clinicians could take over.
Steve Green, a Specialist Practitioner, was one of the many people from EMAS and the Lincs & Notts Air Ambulance Service (LNAA) involved in the response to Sian.
He said: “The advanced life support we delivered to Sian wouldn’t have been as successful, if it hadn’t been for Daniel taking instant action with bystander CPR.
“While he was understandably quite emotional when we got there, we reassured Daniel that he’d given Sian the best chance of survival by delivering effective hands-on CPR at the earliest opportunity.
“CPR not only save lives, but the quicker it’s delivered also reduces the risk of adverse and irreversible damage to the brain for those who do survive.”
Upon the arrival of ambulance and air ambulance colleagues, Sian’s airway was managed to keep it open – allowing the flow of oxygen to her body to be uninterrupted, CPR was maintained, and a defibrillator was attached to Sian.
After approximately 17 minutes, the defibrillator identified Sian’s heart as being in a shockable rhythm, and after two shocks were delivered, her heart was beating again – however, Sian was not out of the woods yet.
Steve added: “Once we managed to stabilize Sian’s condition, we then needed to get her safely out of the property and to hospital as quickly as possible.
“She was taken by road in the ambulance, travelling with myself and the LNAA team. We continued to manage her airway and ensure she remained stable until we got to the hospital.”
Sian was then handed over to the Resuscitation Department at Scunthorpe General Hospital, while still sedated and intubated.
In the early hours of the following morning, Sian went into cardiac arrest for a second time while in the Intensive Care Unit.
Sian said: “A nurse spotted it when she was doing her observations. She had apparently shone a light into my eyes to see they had gone into the back of my head, and the machines attached to me started beeping.”
Miraculously, after six minutes of further advanced life support being delivered to Sian, she managed to survive her second cardiac arrest in less than 24 hours.
Sian says experiencing these major events on top of living with an existing heart condition has been challenging, but she is grateful to her partner Daniel, and all the medics who she credits as her reason for her children “not having to scatter their mother’s ashes.”
Image credit: Stock.adobe.com/JTana
