A man who thought he had indigestion had to be resuscitated three times by doctors.
Mark Lang and his wife Julie were on holiday in Ireland when the 56-year-old woke up with the pain. Mark, from Ormskirk, said this progressed into an "intense pain" in his hands and jaw and knew he had to go to hospital, reports LancsLive.
The dad-of-two went away in February and had enjoyed a night out when he became seriously ill.
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Mark said: “I woke up at 3am and thought I had indigestion, I started to be sick and after an hour, I had a shower; I thought that might help me feel a bit better. I lay down for about 20 minutes, woke up again and the pain was so intense in my hands and jaw, I told Julie I needed to get to hospital.”
The couple were staying just a couple of minutes away from Cork University Hospital at the time (CHU). Julie said if the couple hadn't been so close to the emergency room her husband "wouldn't be with us today".
The former amateur rugby league player suffered three cardiac arrests and was revived each time. After returning recently to thank the team which brought him back from the brink, Mark said: “Professor Noel Caplice told me: ‘You were knocking at those gates (of heaven) a few times and we weren’t letting you go in’.”
The A&E department at CUH’s Wilton campus is just seven minutes’ drive from the Kingsley Hotel, where the Langs were staying. In the time it took Julie to park their car, Mark was whisked to the hospital’s resus area as an emergency team prepared him for the cath lab and stent insertion.
Julie said: “I was just standing there watching. They came from everywhere; doctors, nurses, all the clinicians, anaesthetists, the response was amazing.”
She believes fate stepped in to save her husband – a planned holiday in Kraków with friends had been postponed days earlier, so they booked a short break in Ireland instead.
Julie added: “At home, our local hospital is 20 minutes away. If we were here, Mark could have arrested in the car and might not have survived. It obviously wasn’t his time to go."
Weighbridge operator Mark is now on the road to recovery, but living with a heart function rate of just 27%. A three-week stint in CUH’s coronary care unit was followed by the fitting of an ICD (defibrillator) and pacemaker at Spire Hospital in Manchester and further care at Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital.
Last month, Mark and Julie returned to Cork to present CUH Charity (the hospital’s fundraising arm) with a donation from players at Ormskirk Rugby Club, where he coached for 15 years and Julie was a club steward.
Mark said: “I only realised when I was talking to Prof Caplice afterwards, how close I was to not being here at all. It gives you a true appreciation of what they do.”
Claire Concannon of CUH Charity said the incident highlighted the hospital’s care of patients from much further afield than Cork or Munster.
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