Bill Stavretis describes the chain of helpers who swung in to action when he had a cardiac arrest at his Clunes property in May as his miracle.
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The Melbourne man and his wife Faye were mowing the grass at their holiday home near Clunes when the 63-year-old's heart stopped with no warning.
Alerted by Faye's screams for help, their neighbours rushed to help and the group's quick action to start CPR and race in to Clunes to grab the public automated external defibrillator from the wall of the Clunes IGA literally saved Mr Stavretis' life.
"If it wasn't for my wife and our neighbours in Clunes, and then the paramedics arriving, I wouldn't be speaking to you," Mr Stavretis said.
Ms Stavretis had started CPR, despite having no training in it, and was on the phone to Triple-0 calltakers when Ashley Gillespie, his partner Barb Merrifield and son Chris Durek raced over.
Leaving Mr Durek and Ms Stavretis to continue CPR, the couple raced to the IGA and returned with the defibrillator.
"Barb and I flew down the street and grabbed the jump start machine off the IGA wall, flew back up there and applied the shock a couple of times before the ambulance arrived," Mr Gillespie said.
"We we would have been back with the defib within five minutes and hooked that on him straight away it."
The first shock it applied, just before paramedics arrived, restarted Mr Stavretis' heart.
"The whole time we were working on him he was flat gone, there was nothing there," Mr Gillespie said.
"But the machine told us step-by-step what to do because we didn't know, and in the meantime 000 was still on the phone.
"From what the ambulance paramedic said, that's what saved his life - the combination of the jump start machine and CPR otherwise it would have been 20 minutes where he didn't have any help."
Mr Stavretis realises he's lucky to be alive.
"The CPR and AED kept me alive, and importantly the message is you don't need to be an expert in CPR and wherever people are they've got to know about the machinery (AEDs) available," Mr Stavretis said.
"I'm walking talking proof of it - I've defied all the odds."
Maryborough intensive care paramedic Mark Rewi praised the group effort to save Mr Stavretis' life, saying if they had not leapt in to action he would have died.
"When we arrive they were keeping the oxygen supply to Bill's brain going and the first shock was deployed by the AED as the first ambulance arrived and that restarted his heart.
"As a MICA we have a number of high level interventions that can help but none would be any use without these first three steps - to call (000), push (CPR) and shock (AED).
"It's absolutely not overstating the case to say that Faye, Chris, Ash and Barb saved Bill's life."
It took ambulance crews 20 minutes to arrive at the Stavretis' property and Mr Rewi said the chances of Bill surviving a cardiac arrest without CPR was virtually nil.
The message is call, push, shock," Mr Rewi said. "Call 000, push hard and fast in the middle of the chest and a call taker will talk you through it anyway, and then utilise an AED if available.
- MICA paramedic Mark Rewi
He said even untrained bystanders could be the difference between life and death, as was the case with Mr Stavretis.
"In cardiac arrest, every minute delay in CPR decreases survival by about 10 per cent and if you don't have early access to a defibrillator that also has a really dramatic reduction in survival."
Ambulance Victoria are running free online CPR training during Shocktober, which was created to help turn around a 50 per cent decline in cardiac arrest survival rates during the first wave of COVID-19.
"The message is call, push, shock," Mr Rewi said. "Call 000, push hard and fast in the middle of the chest and a call taker will talk you through it anyway, and then utilise an AED if available."
A list of registered AEDs is available on the Ambulance Victoria website.
Mr Rewi said people being prepared to step foward and help could save lives. "When the first shock is given by a member of the public using an AED, survival goes up to 68 per cent," he said.
Ambulance Victoria has also announced its GoodSAM program, which sends trained responders to cardiac arrest cases, will be reactivated in regional Victoria after only operating on a restricted basis due to COVID-19.
"At the start of the pandemic, little was known on the impact of performing CPR in the community with the presence of COVID-19. That's why we made the decision in March to suspend GoodSAM alerts from being sent to non-operational AV employees and the wider GoodSAM community," said AV executive director of clinical operations Associate Professor Mick Stephenson.
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Associate Professor Stephenson said this measure had not materially impacted the drop in cardiac arrest survival rates during the first wave, which was most likely due to longer response times and fewer arrests in public areas.
"Our research showed there were multiple factors for this decrease - mainly due to paramedics taking two minutes longer to defibrillate as they need to apply PPE before responding. More cardiac arrests are also occurring in the home and this has meant less public defibrillation prior to ambulance arrival," he said.
Today is Ambulance Victoria's Restart a Heart Day.