Man praises ambulance staff for saving his life after suffering cardiac arrest

Those are the words of a man who suffered a cardiac arrest whilst driving and ended up crashing his car into a tree – with off-duty paramedics springing into action to help him.

Colin Cady suffered the medical episode whilst driving in Sutton Coldfield in October this year, with Erdington paramedics Roy Taylor and Maria Johnson both passing at the time.

The pair quickly started CPR and utilised a nearby public access defibrillator whilst waiting for an ambulance to arrive. They were assisted by an off-duty police officer and an off-duty nurse before ambulance crews took over.

It means Colin is now able to look forward to celebrating Christmas this year with his family – and reunited with some of the ambulance staff who worked together to save his life.

He said: “There really are no words to say thank you to those who saved my life that day. I count myself incredibly lucky that multiple off-duty emergency service staff were there at that moment, and that they came over to help me.

“Thanks to their actions, I’ve been able to celebrate my 53rd birthday recently and I’m ready to celebrate Christmas this year, one that I wouldn’t have seen if it weren’t for the fantastic work of the emergency services staff and staff caring for me in hospital.”

Maria said: “It’s lovely to see Colin under such positive circumstances. It’s also such an important moment to appreciate just how fantastic bystander CPR and AEDs are.

“In this case we were able to assist with saving a patient’s life, not as ambulance staff but as bystanders, which is something that anyone with good CPR knowledge could do.”

Roy said: “While passing by and witnessing the incident, it was natural to go over and see if I could help at all, then seeing Maria there too was an incredible stroke of luck.

“Maria and I know each other well and have years of experience behind us so we both went into autopilot and tried to help Colin to the best of our ability while an ambulance was being called.”

Abi Conlin and Grace Harris, alongside Liam Wetton and Kirsty Wood, responded to the emergency call while on duty.

Abi said: “To arrive at a job like this one, where a patient is in cardiac arrest and to see bystander CPR being performed is a great sign, even more relief to see it being done by not one, but two off duty ambulance staff!

“We were able to convey Colin to hospital in a stable condition, which might not have been possible without the combined efforts of everyone there that day.”

Bea, Colin’s partner, added: “We’re so thankful. I’m still in disbelief that these people were all there and able to act to help Colin.

“Without them, I may not have been able to enjoy Christmas this year with Colin, so thank you, this is truly a happy ending to what could have been an awful situation.”