Teesside cardiac arrest survivor urging people to learn CPR
It's Restart a Heart Day and free CPR training is on offer at events right across Teesside today
A Teesside cardiac arrest survivor is urging everyone to learn CPR before they need it.
65 year-old Nick Parkes from Stokesley collapsed during the 2023 national open-water championships at Rother Valley in South Yorkshire. The event team pulled him from the water and performed CPR before the arrival of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance.
Nick was taken to hospital and later underwent a double heart bypass. After a long rehabilitation, he rebuilt his strength and returned to competitive swimming.
He has now made history becoming the first cardiac arrest survivor to swim 22 miles - the full length - of Loch Ness, one of the most demanding open water swims in the world.
Nick's sharing his story in support of Yorkshire Ambulance Service’s Restart a Heart campaign, which will teach CPR to around 35,000 students at 168 secondary schools across Yorkshire this year.
Nick said: “CPR saves lives. Defibs save lives. I’m only here because someone knew what to do and I am excited to share my story in support of Yorkshire Ambulance Service’s Restart a Heart campaign.
"My heart stopped. I drowned, took on water, and went into cardiac arrest. CPR was started, but by that time I'd literally been dead for some 20 minutes.
"I was going there to defend a title which I'd won for the previous 10 years, so there was nothing different. The first race I'd entered was the five kilometres. I got to about three kilometres, went round one of the buoys, and that was it. My life stopped. Literally.
"The emergency team noticed that I wasn't swimming. I was face down in the water, unconscious and not breathing. They managed to get me to the pontoon. CPR continued, and they did get a flicker back. The air ambulance arrived very, very rapidly, and I was then put into a coma for two days.
"When I woke up in hospital, I had no idea, one, where I was, and two, what had happened to me, until the medics explained that I had an issue in the water. There was a light shining in my eye and, not making too much of a lightness to this, I said, 'did I win the race?' Well, obviously I didn't.
"The rehabilitation was something I wasn't aware of, and neither was I aware of how long the pain and the trauma that followed it would last. So, trying to get back into the water from something like that, bearing in mind that, yes, swimming plays a massive part of my life, I persevered.
"I went back to the pool and I literally was just doing what we call doggy paddle, up and down the pool. I subsequently got looser and looser from the operation, got a bit stronger, and I started racing again, I think probably six or seven months later, in the pool.
"I won't say the words 'I'd love you to go and learn it', I want you to go and learn how to do CPR. From my perspective, CPR was what saved me, and we call it elite CPR. It was absolutely on it. So I'd like people to understand how to do it and how to use a defib as well.
"You could save somebody else's life at work, you could save a bystander if you were walking in the woods, children can save adult lives, and vice versa. If somebody is unconscious and not breathing, you have to get onto them and commence CPR immediately. And I mean that within seconds, not thinking about it."
Schoolchildren to learn life-saving CPR to boost cardiac arrest survival rates
A cardiac arrest patient in Yorkshire is nearly twice as likely to survive if a bystander steps in to perform CPR, according to the latest figures from Yorkshire Ambulance Service.
Last year, bystanders intervened in 1,972 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests across the region. Their immediate actions successfully contributed to restarting 643 hearts on the scene, leading to 132 long-term survivors (6.7%). By contrast, out of 892 cardiac arrests where no bystander CPR was provided intervened, 33 people (3.7%) survived past 30 days post-hospital discharge.
To build on these life-saving figures, an army of 800 off-duty staff and volunteers from Yorkshire Ambulance Service, will visit 168 secondary schools across the region - including 37 in North Yorkshire - to train 35,000 students in CPR for Restart a Heart Day today (Friday 16 October).
This year’s campaign theme, ‘Watch it. Learn it. Pass it On.’ highlights how one person learning CPR can help others to become better prepared in the ultimate medical emergency.
As part of the Yorkshire Ambulance Service Charity-supported training event, students will be encouraged to pass their new skills on to family and friends, while members of the public can join in by watching the 10-minute video below and inspiring others to do the same.
Jason Carlyon, Community Engagement Manager at Yorkshire Ambulance Service, said: “The numbers speak for themselves; early CPR makes a monumental difference to whether someone survives a cardiac arrest. Having a bystander step up nearly doubles a patient's chances of coming home from hospital.
“By visiting 168 schools to mark Restart a Heart Day, our 800 volunteers can equip a new generation with the skills and confidence to act in an emergency. We want these 35,000 students to go home, spark conversations with their families and neighbours, and help us turn every community into a place where everyone knows what to do in the event of a cardiac arrest."