So I am sitting on a sun lounger in Gran Canaria soaking up the December sun while my husband & 2 sons play golf & I realise that I now understand what it feels like to be ‘truly blessed’.
Our family story revolves around our eldest son Ben, who suffered an out of hospital cardiac arrest in October 2022 whilst visiting family in Perth, Australia.
Ben was on his way to play 6 months of cricket at the Darren Lehman Cricket Academy in Adelaide & had decided to have 10 days with our family before the start date. He was at the very peak of fitness & had just completed a season of premiership cricket with Bexley CC who had just been crowned National Champions after a nail biting final at Lords.
He had just completed his A Levels & secured a deferred place at Loughborough University….life could not have been going better for him.
My husband was in Singapore on a business trip & myself & youngest son Jack were having a lazy Sunday morning breakfast when we took the call from my husband’s uncle that would change all of our lives forever.
Andrew explained that he, Jackie & Ben had been having a leisurely Sunday afternoon walk along a coastal path when Ben had just collapsed & started turning blue. He couldn’t tell us much, just that Ben was in resus at their local hospital & that he had stopped breathing for a significant period of time.
We later learned that when Ben had collapsed, Andrew had started CPR almost immediately, drawing on his first aid training as a parent at the local surf club, & this had undoubtedly saved Ben’s life. He kept that up for 15 minutes, breaking Ben’s sternum & several ribs while Jackie swung into action calling the ambulance & racing to meet them at the end of the coastal path.
The stars aligned that day & three ambulance crews were having a coffee break nearby so turned up quickly & they took over with a defibrillator. They had to shock Ben 4 times, the last one being in the ambulance en-route to the hospital, before they restarted his heart and he was put into an induced coma once stabilised.
Meanwhile, Dan had managed to get the last flight of the day out of Singapore & was by his bed within 6 hours.
For nearly 72hrs Ben remained in a coma & the hospital ran every heart related test known to man before making the decision to bring him round. He had either Dan, Andrew, Jackie or his cousins Lily & Evie by his bed at all times whilst Jack & I FaceTimed him from the UK. We took the decision not to risk flying & being out of contact until we knew what the situation was & whilst being apart as a family was heart breaking, we were in constant touch with everyone & the nurses caring for Ben were just incredible.
Before bringing Ben round I had a lengthy talk with one of the nurses about how Ben would be, as obviously Dr Google had warned of possible neurological & physical issues as a result of Ben having been without a heart beat or oxygen for roughly 20 minutes, and as a parent you make all sorts of pacts & promises. I even got up & measured our hall way one night to source slim wheelchairs in case he never walked again….as long as we got him back we knew that we would overcome anything!
Meanwhile, I had somehow contracted covid so was unable to fly until all clear & Jack, who was my absolute rock during the first week returned to school while we waited.
Jack was adamant that Ben would be absolutely fine & somehow remained the most positive of us all, despite his world having gone from celebration to devastation in the space of a week, having passed his driving test a few days before Ben’s cardiac arrest. He took on the role of my carer & buffer against the outside world while we dealt with all things medical coming in from Perth.
When Ben came round, he was confused & frightened but he could walk & talk, and amazingly all of his organs were functioning well. He had short term memory loss & thought he hadn’t made it to Australia but was in an English hospital & he couldn’t understand why Jack & I were FaceTiming rather than being with him.
With a clear Covid test Jack & I tried desperately to get flights to Oz which was proving difficult with various sporting events going on, (ironically the T20 Cricket World Cup being one of them), & it took nearly a week for us to secure flights.
Ben continued to undergo tests, including a stress test where he ran for 5kms with the results of an elite sportsman & the reason for his cardiac arrest remained a mystery.
A mild pro-lapsed mitral valve was detected in his left ventricle but this is apparently a common condition which does not usually cause cardiac arrest, however Ben had been clubbing the night before his collapse & had drunk several vodkas with an energy drink mixer.
Because Ben had never drunk energy drinks or much caffeine before, one theory was that the energy drink had over stimulated his heart which was already working at full capacity due to his fitness & it simply ‘overloaded’.
A decision was made to implant a sub-cutaneous ICD (defibrillator) under Ben’s armpit to safeguard against any further arrests & he sailed through the operation, recovering quickly.
Ben spent 10 days in Joondalup Hospital in Perth & then he & I remained in Perth for a further 2 months while he attended out patient appointments, returned to some light fitness training & built his strength back up. Saying goodbye to Dan & Jack was heartbreaking but Jack was part way through his A levels & Dan needed to return to work.
Ben was sore, quite weak & absolutely distraught about missing out on attending the cricket academy in Adelaide but he was adamant that he would return to playing cricket in April, which we were not so sure about, especially as he is a wicket keeper/batsman! He also had difficulty in reading & retaining information for a few months which apparently can be normal after the body having gone through such a trauma.
Nonetheless, although Dan & I were sceptical, I spent hours searching up protective sportswear for people with pacemakers or ICDs & came across Thadeo & a company called Vital Beat. This amazing company in the Netherlands makes custom fit ‘skins’ for cricketers, motor cyclists, hikers etc & after a few consultations via zoom he had produced what are effectively 2 shock absorbers which would enable Ben to play cricket again, (if given the all clear).
Dan & Jack flew back to Oz in December & we spent an amazing Christmas & new year with family & friends before coming home & starting another stage of Ben’s recovery which I think was probably the hardest…normal life.
Fast forward 2 years & Ben has astonished us all. He returned to playing premiership cricket 6 months after his cardiac arrest & secured a job at his old school helping in the PE department while he waited to take up his deferred uni place.
He is currently in his 2nd year at Loughborough University & is part of the ‘performance’ cricket squad where he trains daily in preparation for the season & we have celebrated many positive appointments at Barts Hospital where he continues to amaze the professionals!
Luckily his ability to retain information returned & whilst he still has a blank spanning a week around his cardiac arrest, he has not suffered any long term neurological or physical issues.
He now has an annual check up & his defibrillator feeds weekly reports in to his cardiology team. Other than a daily low dose tablet (ramipril), his life continues as normal, (without caffeine & energy drinks), other than being able to use an induction hob or be ‘wanded’ by security or airport personnel!
Ben also made the decision 6 months after his cardiac arrest that he wanted to raise enough funds to screen his fellow cricketers with not only an ECG but also an echocardiogram. It turns out that he also has a mild annular disjunction on the outside of his left ventricle which is a slightly rarer condition, but again manageable, & this could have been picked up with an echocardiogram screening.
We spoke to Steve Cox, the CEO of CRY, and he arranged for us to have access to a unique screening programme whereby we can offer 24 sports people a day both an ECG & an echocardiogram followed up by a consultation with a cardiologist.
After a few family conferences we decided that our first fund raising event would be a static bike ride where we kept the wheels turning for 24hrs a day, 7 days a week during Bexley Cricket Club’s amazing Cricket Week.
We set up a JustGiving page & created a MyHeart Fund in Ben’s name & were overwhelmed with the response in both donations & volunteers, raising an astonishing £20,000 by the end of the week.
We have since had another 24/7 bike ride in 2024 plus held our first CRYket Dinner & Dance which was a huge success raising £10,000 on the night & we will be repeating both events in 2025!
We have also had some incredible people raise funds for Ben’s fund including Cathy Palmer who did a skydive, (crazy woman), & Charlie Owen who ran a charity half marathon, (also pretty crazy)!
By January 2025 we will have screened 100 sporty youngsters aged between 16.5yrs & 35yrs with 6 abnormalities having been detected so far, (2 of which were fairly serious & would not have been picked up by an ECG alone).
Ben’s mental strength has been incredible although he has obviously had various ‘wobbles’ over the last 2 years which he has had to work through. What happened to Ben changed us all in many ways and as his mum I have had to work hard not to smother both sons, (with varying success levels), but I don’t think I will ever lose the daily worry about ‘unseen’ or unimagined dangers!!!
However, we have also re-adjusted how we view life as a whole, particularly family life, & more than ever we encourage each other to live life to the full every day.
CRY have been amazing over the last 2 years in helping us to fundraise & put together our screenings & the support that we have received from friends & family, particularly our Kent wide cricket family, has been absolutely overwhelming.
Our hope is to continue raising funds for screenings as well as awareness plus Ben is keen to become more involved with raising awareness personally and one of his top priorities is to spread awareness of the importance of learning CPR.
If Andrew had not battled through 15 gruelling minutes of CPR in the Australian heat our family’s story would have been a very different & unimaginable one.
www.myheart.org.uk/ben-aldred
