I spent thirty-six hours in a medically induced coma. A gadget was implanted into my body to shock my heart automatically, so I don’t have to depend on a lifesaver being in the right place at the right time again. I was so lucky that someone knew what they were doing.

But I didn’t see myself as lucky straight away. Recovery isn’t simple. My brain didn’t work the same way and my body definitely didn’t. It’s taken years of support and patience to feel like myself again. Even now, I’m not quite the same Joel as I was before.

What many people don’t realize is that everyone involved can also be deeply affected. Resuscitation is shocking in so many ways.

4. Get the patient access to the medics, nurses, physios and others who will continue treatment in the hospital, and beyond.

But without lifesavers like you, it couldn’t happen at all. I said in my first video that ordinary people make the difference – but I was saved by an extraordinary person. I will never, ever stop being grateful to her or forget that it didn’t just change my history. It changed hers too. I was ‘down’ for eighteen minutes. Those must have seemed like eighteen lifetimes to her, yet she kept going.

So – eighteen years too late – I want to say thank you, from the bottom of my misbehaving heart.

Chapter 53: Kerry

28 February 2013

‘I think we should stop. Does everyone agree?’

Around me, my colleagues nod. As deaths go, it’s not unexpected. The patient is in her eighties and there is probably a Do Not Attempt Resuscitation order somewhere in the system, but there wasn’t time to locate that when she arrested halfway through the paramedic’s handover.

The bay empties, and a nurse begins to clear away the detritus that goes with trying to shock someone back to life. After all the noise, there’s a stillness now in the space bordered by the curtains, though beyond the fabric the hum of A & E continues as though nothing has happened.

‘Is there any family I need to talk to?’ I ask the nurse. Sophie. Stephanie. Something like that. I should probably remember by now, I’ve been working with her for almost a month.

‘She came in alone.’

‘Good, I need a coffee.’

The nurse frowns and leaves the room. Did I sound cruel? I should probably follow her and explain, but there are patients who’re approaching the four-hour waiting time-limit. There are always more patients.

Not that I mind. Now I’m an F2, I’ve finally started my emergency medicine rotation, and it’s everything I expected and hoped for: the bright, noisy chaos, the complete unpredictability, the constant challenge, the shifts that go by in a flash . . .