I'm Andrew Boyd I'm 25 years old and I stay in Dumfries which is in Dumfries
and Galloway. What had happened was I was woken through the early hours of the
morning from a phone call from my brother Michael to say that my dad had
fell unwell during the night and he had actually had 999 called out
to the house he was basically blue lights to the
A&E in Dumfries because he'd experienced a cardiac arrest in his
sleep. 10 year prior to my dad having his cardiac arrest he did actually experience a
heart attack as well. So but he'd done all his rehab and he was fit
he'd done a lot of cycling and done a lot of activities so at the time he wasn't
having he wasn't having any issues heart related. But he was diabetic so
there was obviously an ongoing condition that he had to obviously keep
insulin going into his body throughout his life. He was injecting three times a day
and so unfortunately there was that but the heart side of things there wasn't
anything that we were aware off. At the time my mum was alone like I say it was during the night
so it was around about three o'clock in the morning.
She woke up to find my my dad was awake but breathing very heavy and sharp trying to
get a breath. And with my dad been diabetic my mum thought instincts kicked
in get the Epipen to put insulin into my dad's system but when she returned
back to the bedroom he had actually went from breathing to being totally
unconscious and he'd actually stopped breathing and that's when my mum knew
that he'd experienced a cardiac arrest. So she managed to get my dad out of bed
and performed CPR because with her working at the doctor's surgery in Lochmaben
she was first aid trained so she knew obviously the ratio for the chest
compressions and got my dad breathing again. But unfortunately he was
was unconscious but at least he was back with us and he had that fighting chance
because my mum managed to get him breathing again. I was
just absolutely shocked because I spoke to my dad probably six or seven hours
prior to him having the cardiac arrest and he never once said he had any problems
at all or felt any pains or out of breath or anything he just
sounded like my dad. So I was absolutely gobsmacked and obviously
I just started panicking and got really upset and I was actually at my
girlfriend's house so it was just a matter of basically getting clothes on as quick
as we could and then get into Dumfries to get up to the Royal Infirmary
to be by my dad's side. He went from Lockmaben which was where they stay to the
the Royal Infirmary in Dumfries to try and give him the treatment there
and then. Like I say with him breathing but because he was unconscious
obviously the nurses wanted to get him as much help as they could in Dumfries.
So they had obviously all the medication getting pumped into his body to
try and reduce all the tension on his body and basically get the heart to do
as little as possible so it was trying to give it time to recover from the
experience. But because of how severe it was and how long he probably did
go without oxygen before we managed to my mum managed to get him breathing again
they wanted to get him up to the Glasgow Golden Jubilee as quick as
possible. So it was just a matter of waiting really
until there was the possibility of getting him up to Glasgow
because they were looking to do it via a helicopter because that's how severe it ended up
being. But unfortunately it was needed elsewhere as well so we were just
at dad's side at Dumfries until basically they got the ambulance that
could take him up to Glasgow. My mum was very upset because she
blamed herself unfortunately and there's nothing more my mum could have done
because if it wasn't for my mum we would have been saying our goodbyes on that
morning because like I say with my dad going into cardiac arrest
my mum got him back.