Pete and Melissa talk of the time she saved the runner's life
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00:00 Hi, my name is Pete. Hi, I'm Melissa and in September 2019 I saved Pete's life when he
00:09 had an out of hospital cardiac arrest.
00:15 On the 12th of September in 2019 I was out running in my local area in Telford when I
00:21 suffered an out of hospital cardiac arrest.
00:24 I was also going for a run and where I was running was kind of up a hill, so I was going
00:29 up the hill as I saw Pete running across the top of the road and I noticed that he'd sort
00:35 of slowed down and was stumbling and then he fell backwards and hit his head.
00:39 At this point somebody else had already stopped and they were on the phone to the ambulance
00:44 so I'd run over to Pete and noticed that he'd stopped breathing and had to do something
00:50 and that's when I started CPR.
00:51 It's given me a second chance, so shortly afterwards I started to refer to this as life
01:00 part two and it's given me much more opportunity to do things with my family.
01:06 It makes me really treasure every day that I have and I've got into a really nice habit
01:12 at the end of the day of just lying in bed and just thinking back through to all the
01:16 things that have happened in the day that are quite positive or that I've enjoyed just
01:20 to sort of remember them and reflect on them.
01:22 The only downside is that it's made me a little bit impulsive with wanting to do things or
01:27 spend money.
01:29 If my kids suggest that we should do something I'm possibly a bit inclined to say yeah go
01:34 on then because I don't want to have any regrets.
01:39 And I just feel eternally grateful, I think there's just a continued sense of how lucky
01:43 I am I think.
01:48 So what was really amazing was meeting Pete not long after the event happened.
01:53 So a few days later when Pete was still in hospital I went to the hospital and I met
01:58 Pete's wife and his children and I think seeing the impact that what I did had on the family
02:04 was amazing that I'd given their husband back and their dad back and meeting his children
02:11 and thinking about the ripple effect of that, that he's going to get to see them grow older
02:15 and he's not going to miss out on such important life events.
02:19 Yeah I still think about it a lot now and it's great because we get to meet up and we
02:25 sort of always talk about it when we meet up and reflect and we have a coffee and on
02:32 the 12th of September every year Pete sends me cupcakes which is great and this year we
02:37 were just saying it's the fifth year since it happened so we're going to go up the Reek
02:42 in which Pete does every year but I'm going to join you this year.
02:45 Yeah go and watch the sunrise.
02:47 Yeah go and watch the sunrise.
02:52 I would really encourage anyone in my position just to give it a go you don't necessarily
02:57 have to be first aid trained, just try.
03:01 I always thought it was better to do something instead of nothing and I think that really
03:05 paid off in this story.
03:08 The ambulance service can be really helpful and give you advice and guidance over the
03:12 phone so you don't feel like you're in that situation on your own.
03:20 In my case the person phoning the ambulance service was given directions to find their
03:26 local AED and it's really important that any AEDs that are out there in the community are
03:33 registered on something called the circuit and the circuit is a system that allows the
03:39 ambulance service to know where AEDs are and also has the passcodes for the locked cabinets
03:46 so it can allow a passerby to get in to access the AED because that's crucial to shock and
03:53 restart the heart.