Eddie Hayes owes his life to the quick actions of a surf lifesaver, a physio, and a nurse, who were first on scene after he cardiac arrested while running the Hātea Loop on 15 July 2023
Having passed his family walking the Loop a few minutes earlier, Eddie recalls giving them some cheek about being too slow.
When his heart arrested, he dropped to the ground and smacked his head.
Wife Kellie and daughter Britta arrived on the scene of a big group of people and were saddened to see that someone was being provided with CPR. This quickly turned to horror when it dawned that they were looking at Ed.
“We were shocked by it. We all saw Eddie at the same time,” recall Kellie and Britta.
“There was a guy performing CPR, and one of the women was doing the breathing. It seemed like ages. Eddie kept spluttering and foaming at the mouth.”
He was in cardiac arrest for 10 minutes while his saviours worked on him before he was shocked back to life by Hato Hone St John Paramedics with a defibrillator.
“We then had to wait half an hour outside the Ambulance while they intubated Eddie,” says Kellie
After being intubated and stabilised, he was taken by a Hato Hone St John Ambulance to Whangārei Hospital. After placing him in an induced coma, the decision was made to airlift him on the Northern Rescue Helicopter to North Shore Hospital, where he spent four nights in ICU and received a stent (due to a blood clot blocking 90% of an artery in his heart, which was the cause of his cardiac arrest).
Kellie says that due to the head injury, he was continually asking her the same questions as he was confused about where he was and why. So, she wrote him a note explaining everything and provided answers to all of his questions for him to read when she ducked away to get some much-needed sleep.
After being released from North Shore Hospital, Eddie returned home to undergo further tests and observation by Specialist Physician Mark Kennedy.
It was one heck of a journey for his wife and the couple’s other children – and speaking of the incident brings all those emotions back.
Kellie says, looking back at it all unfolding, she recognises she had waves of emotions.
“Thinking he is dead and he is not coming back. I have the utmost respect for first responders. The people working on Eddie were really great.”
Eddie is lucky enough to have fully recovered and still runs, although confined to gym treadmills, as Kellie finds it too stressful to think of him running alone on the streets again. Eddie has managed to locate the Nurse and physio who saved him, but he has yet to find and thank the surf lifesaver.
Eddie is deeply grateful to everyone who cared for him in his time of need.
