Man survives New Year’s heart attack
A Strubens Valley resident started his year off on a pretty low note, when he suffered a heart attack on New Year's Day.
Johannes Pieterse was on vacation with his family when he started experiencing pain in his chest on New Year’s Eve.
He thought it was simply because he might have ‘overdone it’ during the festive season, but organised a check-up to be safe. He went to see Dr Ryall Hamlyn at Netcare Alberlito Hospital on New Year’s Day and informed Dr Hamlyn that he had experienced ‘angina-like’ pain the day before.
Dr Hamlyn found no irregularities in Pieterse’s electrocardiogram, but insisted he take a blood test for cardiac enzymes immediately.
Pieterse then went to the Ampath laboratory, which is where he suffered his heart attack.
Luckily, Dr Hamlyn and his wife (who’s a registered nurse) were with Pieterse and could begin administering CPR immediately.
A person who was also in the waiting room ran across the road to the base at the hospital to get further assistance.
One Netcare 911 intermediate life support paramedic, Donny Govender, and one basic life support paramedic, Sundheer Singh, arrived and took over from Dr Hamlyn.
Not long after, advanced life support paramedic, Shaun Paul, arrived at the scene to assist.
“Pieterse was in ventricular fibrillation, which is an often-fatal type of heart rhythm disturbance, and his skin was turning blue because his heart was not able pump and circulate oxygenated blood throughout his body. Fortunately, with early intervention and the aid of a defibrillator, we were able to treat this life-threatening condition,” Paul said.
Pieterse was later diagnosed with an inferior myocardial infarction, meaning that one of the main arteries of the heart had become blocked, resulting in a heart attack.
Pieterse extended a huge ‘thank you’ to the Netcare 911 team.
“I am so grateful to Dr Hamlyn and his wife, the man who ran across the road to call the paramedics, and Netcare 911 for their efforts – they certainly saved my life. If not for them, I would probably not have lived to see more than the first day of 2018,” he said.
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