Gloucestershire man tackling London to Brighton bike ride after struggling to walk his dog
A man who discovered major heart problem after struggling to walk his dog now cycling fit in his 50s
A Gloucestershire man who could “barely walk 50 yards” before undergoing quintuple bypass surgery is gearing up to cycle the London to Brighton Bike Ride for the fourth time.
Adam Smith, now 54, has tackled the 54-mile cycling challenge every year since recovering from the life-changing procedure in 2021 – and will once again be raising funds for British Heart Foundation (BHF), the UK’s largest independent funder of cardiovascular research.
Adam, who runs a construction company, had been fit and well before he started experiencing chest tightness and breathlessness in late 2020, which he initially put down to indigestion.
However, by the following summer, he was struggling to take his dog, Walnut, for a walk without needing to stop and rest every few minutes.
But it wasn’t until Adam realised he couldn’t even push the lawnmower from one side of his garden to the other that he really started to worry.
His wife Eve urged him to ask his GP about getting his heart checked.
Tests revealed Adam’s arteries were severely blocked and he needed imminent major surgery to prevent a life-threatening heart attack from occurring.
Adam says: “It sounds ridiculous now, but at the time, I just didn’t think that what was going on could be so serious.
“Because it was lockdown when my symptoms started, nobody was really seeing doctors face-to-face and I kept putting it all down to indigestion, even though things were getting worse and worse as the weeks went on.
“There’s a small hill behind our house where I’d normally walk our dog, Walnut, but it got to the point where I could no longer manage it.
“At first, I just thought I was losing my fitness, but things kept getting worse.
“Eventually, I was on the phone to the GP and my wife said: make sure the doctor’s 100% certain this isn't something to do with your heart, as there is a history of heart attacks in my family and several relatives had previously had heart bypass surgeries.
“They referred me to the chest pain clinic at our local hospital, and it all spiralled from there.
“In my eyes, the nurse I saw at the clinic saved my life.
“I still get a bit emotional thinking about it.
“She was the one who really looked at me and saw that I was a heart attack waiting to happen, as my arteries were so blocked.”
Adam had a quintuple bypass on 2nd September 2021 at the Oxford Heart Centre at John Radcliffe Hospital.
He spent five days in hospital before going home to continue his recovery.
Since then, he has tackled the London to Brighton Bike Ride every summer, raising funds for British Heart Foundation.