Hebburn dad tells of 15-year-old son’s heart attack horror
Sep 4 2010 by Adrian Pearson, The Journal
A FATHER has relived the moment his teenage son had a heart attack.
Ben Anderson, who has just turned 15, was watching TV with his grandparents Phil, 72, and Brenda, 62, when he collapsed on the couch in their home in St Oswald’s Road, Hebburn, South Tyneside, in July.
His grandparents thought they had heard Ben choking and realised he wasn’t breathing.
After calling for an ambulance, Phil, Brenda, and Ben’s dad Mark began the frantic process of keeping the teen alive.
Talking to paramedics over the phone, Mark, 35, of Tyneview, Hebburn, began giving Ben mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, desperately trying to revive him.
The taxi driver and dad-of-three, who is a qualified first aider, said: “When I saw him lying helpless on the floor, it was the worst feeling in my life.
“My mum passed me the phone and the paramedic told me to lift up his shirt to check if his heart was beating. But it had stopped, and at that point I thought we had lost him. I started to give him CPR (Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation) and mouth-to-mouth until the paramedics came. I never thought I would ever have to do that on my own son.”
Two ambulances and a rapid response team were called to the home and crews performed CPR on Ben to try to restore his heartbeat. They were forced to use a defibrillator when Ben went into cardiac arrest and was then taken to South Tyneside District Hospital.
Mark, who used to run Jarrow Eagles football team, said: “You put all your trust into the paramedics. When he wasn’t responding I thought there was nothing that could be done to save him.
