The seemingly fit and healthy father was trying his best to attend his wife’s gym class for fear of being seen as a “wimp”, but then suffered a heart attack and collapsed for seven minutes.
Dale Bilson, from Castle Donnington, Leicestershire, started feeling unwell minutes after attending an early morning HIIT class with his partner Sophie in August.
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The 37-year-old immediately noticed a feeling of pressure in his chest, chalked it up to being a weakling, and decided to continue his classes. My wife joked that she thought it was “healthier than this.”
But the father-of-one had to leave the group for some fresh air after his chest pain worsened after a round of burpees and squat jumps.
Worried it might be a sign of something more sinister, Dale’s wife Sophie took him to A&E for tests.
Just minutes after arriving, the business owner went into cardiac arrest in the hospital waiting room and underwent emergency CPR.
Read more about heart attacks
During the seven excruciating minutes Dale lay in his hospital bed, doctors attempted to restart his heart three times.
Fortunately, on the third attempt, Dale was able to breathe again and underwent surgery to install a stent in the clogged artery that had caused the heart attack and subsequent cardiac arrest.
Dale, who exercises regularly by playing rugby and football and going to the gym, has never had heart-related problems but now feels lucky to be alive. There is.
He urges others to be aware of the signs and symptoms of a heart attack or cardiac arrest.
“My wife convinced me to start taking early morning HIIT classes at a local gym,” Dale said.
“I started warming up and felt more tired than usual.
“I did one set of circuits, doing burpees and squat thrusts, and my wife looked at me and said, ‘You’re done, I thought you’d be healthier.’
“At the start of the second circuit, I thought this didn’t feel right at all.
“Feeling that I needed some fresh air, I took myself out of the environment.
“My chest started to feel a little tight, which developed into a little bit of pain.
“Because I’m such an idiot, I already thought I was a wimp when I left class, so if I let it sit for five minutes, the pain would go away.”
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But after waiting 15 minutes for the pressure to subside, Dale’s chest pain worsened, so his wife Sophie drove him to a local hospital.
Within two minutes of arriving, Dale went into cardiac arrest while sitting in the A&E waiting room.
Dale said: “They started CPR on me and put me on a machine that did mechanical CPR, which forced my heart to beat.
“They tried to get my heart to start on its own, but apparently it didn’t work the first two times. They said there was no heartbeat for seven or eight minutes.
“Apparently, if you go longer than nine minutes, the risk of not being resuscitated increases significantly. Soph called everyone and told them to come see us and say goodbye.”
Doctors were eventually able to restart Dale’s heart and immediately placed a heart stent to prevent further health problems.
subtle signs of a heart attack
A heart attack is a sudden interruption of the blood supply to the heart.
This is a medical emergency and must be treated immediately.
According to the British Heart Foundation, around 100,000 people in the UK are admitted to hospital each year with a heart attack.
That’s 290 cases every day, or one every five minutes.
Symptoms such as chest pain, shortness of breath, and dizziness or dizziness can be quite obvious.
But the signs are not always so obvious, the NHS warns. Other more subtle symptoms of a heart attack include:
- Pain in other parts of the body (the pain may feel like it’s radiating from your chest to your arms, jaw, neck, back, or stomach)
- sweating
- I don’t feel well
- vomiting
- An overwhelming feeling of anxiety (similar to a panic attack)
- weakness or fatigue
- cough
- wheezing
Heart attack and cardiac arrest are similar but not the same.
Cardiac arrest is when the heart stops pumping blood around the body.
Dale was told one artery was completely blocked and two more were 70% blocked, cutting off blood flow to his heart.
Dale said: “At my age, something like this was almost unheard of. I think family history was a big part of it and stress played a role.”
“Almost every doctor I talked to told me how young I was.
“The doctors said the stars were aligned. If I wasn’t at the gym with my wife, she wouldn’t be able to drive me and I would have gone into cardiac arrest on the way there. It might have been.
“So many things worked in my favor. I was shocked that my daughter would have gone to the first day of school without her father and that my wife Sophie would have been widowed at 28. .
“I would tell people to always check their family history and see their doctor if they have any concerns.
“If you find yourself in a situation where you think you are having a heart attack, please call 999.”
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