Donna Liddle likes to tell people she is part of the 8% club — that’s the percentage of people who, like Donna, survive a sudden cardiac arrest at home.
But the 39-year-old’s story of survival, which happened three months ago at her home in Aberdeen’s west end, is even more incredible. It was her children who saved her life.
Oliver, 11, and Arianna, 10, raced to the rescue when Donna collapsed in her bathroom.
They set in motion a full-scale rescue that included next-door neighbours, the Scottish Ambulance Service, the police and Aberdeen Royal Infirmary’s cardiology unit, all of whom contributed to saving Donna’s life.
But if it hadn’t been for the cool presence of mind of her children, Donna says she wouldn’t have made it out of her home alive.
“Absolutely amazing,” Donna says. “Between the children, the neighbours and the police and the paramedics — it was very, very lucky.”
Cardiac arrest as Donna got ready for the school run
Donna can’t remember anything of her cardiac arrest — even the two days before have been wiped from her memory.
But through speaking to others about it she knows she collapsed as she was brushing her teeth.
It was June 3, and Donna was preparing for the Monday morning school run.
Arianna, hearing a loud bang, came to investigate and found her mum curled up around the bathroom sink, unconscious.
At this point, things did not look great for Donna. There was the incredibly low survival rate for out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, but she was also at severe risk of permanent brain damage due to a lack of oxygen.
As she lay on the floor her face was already turning blue.
What her children did next, however, was a rescue mission that a paramedic who arrived on the scene later as “absolute textbook”. It saved Donna’s life.
Finding her mum unconscious, Arianna screamed for her brother who raced upstairs.
Amazingly, Oliver had recently taken part in a first aid module at his school, the International School Aberdeen. Despite the horror of the situation had the presence of mind to put his mum into the recovery position.
Not to be outdone in the hero stakes, Arianna phoned first for an ambulance and then, when the paramedics didn’t immediately arrive, rushed over to neighbours Lynne and Ian Martin-Beattie’s house for assistance.
The Beatties dragged Donna into her upstairs hallway, where Ian started CPR, keeping the oxygen flowing to Donna’s brain.
Soon, the paramedics arrived — three police cars and three ambulances, says Donna, still amazed at the response — and took over CPR duties.
Donna is told her children saved her life
Donna’s situation was so critical she was put in a coma for the next 24 hours, cooling her brain and allowing it to recover.
At ARI, she was rushed to intensive care. Though she was eventually brought out of the coma, she has no recollection of the first week of the 15 nights she spent there.
What eventually filtered through though was the story of what her children, and her other rescuers, had done for her.
“I think all my memories of that time come from the second week, because I remember asking my dad, why am I here, what happened to me?
“Obviously they told me [what happened] every single day, but I don’t know what clicked — it just kind of sunk in.”
How the incident has affected Oliver and Arianna
Donna is immensely proud of her children. The clarity of thought they showed during a moment of extreme distress is, she says, remarkable.
On the phone to the emergency services, Arianna was able to relay important information even as her mum turned blue in the bathroom.
Oliver, meanwhile, manhandled his mum into the recovery position while staying cool and not panicking.
Donna is, however, aware of the strain the episode has taken on her children.
The two were kept in Donna’s bedroom while the paramedics worked on her, but heard the defibrillator sounds as her life hung in the balance.
Shaken by those hours, the children now make sure they know where Donna is.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” she says. “It’s been really hard for my children, the fact they had to witness and see everything.”
“So although it’s a positive story — what they did was brilliant — but obviously it’s still new and difficult for them.”
‘You realise how important and how precious life is’
The experience has changed Donna as well.
The cause of her cardiac arrest remains a mystery, but to ensure it doesn’t happen again, doctors have implanted a tiny battery-operated defibrillator into her chest that monitors her heart rate.
If it drops or beats irregularly, the device sends a shock to get the heart back on track.
That hasn’t happened yet, but Donna has been told it is like getting kicked in the chest.
She says: “Having cardiac issues, you live in fear of something happening, something going wrong and so having this device gives you a bit of peace of mind.
“But you realise how important and how precious life is, and being a mum to young children, you just kind of expect to be there for them. But you know that can be taken away from you, literally in a split second.”
A fundraiser for Donna’s rescuers
To say thank you to the people that saved her life, Donna has set up a fundraiser for NHS Grampian’s Cardiology Fund to help cardiology patients at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
The fundraiser, which is aiming to hit £10,000, includes a ceilidh and dinner at the Copthorne Hotel in Aberdeen on March 7 next year. Donna is also seeking monetary donations and raffle and auction prizes.
Meanwhile, her fundraiser comes alongside a drive by Scottish health authorities to improve survival rates for the 3,000 cardiac arrests a year that occur outside of a hospital, accounting for 90% of the total (a cardiac arrest is when the heart stops beating whereas a heart attack is when blood flow is blocked).
The scheme aims to equip a further one million people in Scotland with CPR skills by 2026.
“I’m just obviously really keen for something positive to come of this,” says Donna, who has recently qualified her dog Teddy as a ‘therapet’ to help people recovering in hospital.
Those who helped Donna that day have also spoken about the critical role CPR played in her survival.
“We are so pleased Donna is back in good health,” says Dr Vera Lennie, the consultant cardiologist who led Donna’s care at ARI. “It’s brilliant she’s keen to raise awareness about CPR and the lifesaving expertise we can all gain to help in an emergency.”
Aberdeen-based paramedic Monica Hurley, is one of the Scottish Ambulance Service staff members who attended Donna. She says: “We are so pleased to see Donna has made such a good recovery. The brave actions of her children saved her life that day — early intervention is critical in out-of-hospital cardiac arrests and every second counts.”
Why Donna is grateful she didn’t cancel her home phone
Donna is now a lot more grateful for a number of things. First-aid courses in schools, for example, as well as neighbours who know CPR.
But there’s one thing she didn’t expect to feel indebted to which she now credits with life-saving abilities.
Her landline.
In the chaos of her arrest, Donna’s phone got lost behind the bathroom door. Husband Andy was not at home at the time and if the house hadn’t had a landline, Oliver and Arianna wouldn’t have been able to call for help.
“The landline is something we never use, and we spoke about for years to cancel,” Donna says, laughing.
“Thank God we didn’t.”
To donate to Donna’s fundraiser, click here. And if you want to be a life-saver too, the British Heart Foundation have a downloadable app that teaches CPR in 15 minutes.
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