A Welsh man whose life was saved by teammates when he had a cardiac arrest at a walking football tournament is backing a new campaign urging people to learn lifesaving CPR.
Alan Owen, 51, from Carmarthen, collapsed on the sidelines of a match at Caldicot Leisure Centre in April last year. It was thanks to his quick-thinking teammates who were trained in CPR, plus the leisure centre staff, that he survived.
Now Alan is supporting the British Heart Foundation this Heart Month as the charity encourages people to learn CPR in just 15 minutes using its free innovative training tool, RevivR.
Every year around 2,800 people suffer an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in Wales, with only 1 in 20 surviving. Immediate CPR and defibrillation can more than double the chances of survival in some cases.
Alan was at a walking football tournament last April with his 16-year-old son Jacob, who had come along for moral support. Alan had played one game for his team Carmarthen Town and was on the sidelines watching when he collapsed. Luckily the man he was talking to at the time, Martin Power, was a police officer who knew CPR.
“I don’t remember any of this, but I was told afterwards that Martin realised I had stopped breathing,” said Alan.
“So he turned me over on my back and one of our other football players who is ex-military, a guy called Sean Golder, came running over.
“He had had CPR training as part of his military training, so he started compressions. Our manager then phoned 999 and one of the other players ran across to get the staff at the leisure centre to see whether there was a defibrillator there.”
Sean, Martin and the leisure centre staff performed CPR for around 8 minutes until they were finally able to successfully restart his heart using the centre’s defibrillator. Minutes later, paramedics and air ambulances arrived and Alan was taken to hospital in Cardiff.
His son was looked after by members of his team and a friend who lived nearby, until Alan’s wife Mel was able to pick him up. She was reunited with Alan at the hospital where a couple of days later Alan was diagnosed with the heart condition Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy – a disease of the heart muscle, where the muscle wall of your heart becomes thickened.
Alan has since been fitted with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), which will help control any potentially life-threatening heart rhythms.
After his collapse, Alan said he realised how vital it had been that people around him on the day knew CPR. He urged as many people as possible, including members of sports clubs or community groups, to be trained in the lifesaving skill. He said his entire walking football team had had CPR training instead of playing football one night.
“It’s trying to get people who run small groups, community associations, even a yoga class to learn CPR just in case,” he said.
“When you are setting up a committee, or a group or small organisation, that should be one of the things that’s on the list – do we have someone who knows CPR?”
Rhodri Thomas, head of BHF Cymru, said: “What happened to Alan must have been incredibly traumatic for all involved. Luckily it ended well but it could so easily have been different and his story really highlights the importance of having someone close by who knew how to perform the lifesaving skill of CPR.
“Every second counts when someone has a cardiac arrest, and knowing CPR could be the difference between life and death. A cardiac arrest can happen to anyone at any time – it could be your partner, your mum or dad or your child.
“It only takes 15 minutes to learn with RevivR – that’s a coffee break, half time in the football or the time you might spend scrolling through social media. I urge you do it today, as it could be the most important lesson you ever learn.”
