A 63-year-old man who survived a cardiac arrest while running this year’s Belfast City Marathon is calling for more registered defibrillators in Northern Ireland.
John Deery, from Co Londonderry, was saved by nearby spectator Peter O’Hare’s defibrillator after collapsing from a heart attack midway through the 26.2-mile race this past May.
His last memory was turning on the upper Newtownards Road before collapsing on the street.
“A good friend took pictures of me minutes before I collapsed, but I don’t remember a thing,” John said.
Peter (44) was meant to be participating in the race but had to drop out due to an injury. He rushed to grab the defibrillator in his car when he saw John fall to the ground.
“I immediately shouted for someone to start CPR and I raced to get the defibrillator I keep in the car,” Peter said.
“I turned it on and some people helped with pulling up John’s shirt so I could get the defibrillator attached to his chest. I told everyone to stand back while the defib shocked him.”
John is now calling for an increase in the number of registered defibrillators.
John Deery taking part in the Rathlin Run this past August
After being resuscitated by the defibrillator, John said medics were forced to operate on him at the scene of his cardiac arrest.
“There were three healthcare professionals that immediately stepped out,” John explained.
“They drilled a hole into my shin [for a] bloodline, because the rest of my veins had collapsed. [They] had to operate on me at the actual scene.”
The former Gaelic coach was no stranger to marathon running having completed his first long-distance challenge at the 2015 Belfast Half Marathon, where he first caught “the running bug”.
Since then, he has picked up numerous marathon medals, averaging “six or seven events a year”.
In the lead-up to the marathon in May, John said he felt slightly out of breath during a few training sessions but “put it down to having slight asthma and having been tired from completing the Madrid Half Marathon weeks before”.
The retired business manager is now backing a new British Heart Foundation (BHF) campaign calling for an increase in the number of registered defibrillator systems in Northern Ireland.
Survival rates for out-of-hospital heart attacks is less than 10% due to the lack of access to defibrillators.
John with his wife Janet
Currently, there are 3,500 defibrillators registered in Northern Ireland; however, there are many more out there unregistered.
John said: “The reason I’m doing this is because I want to increase the number of defibrillators registered in Northern Ireland.
“There could be defibrillators in churches, sports clubs or other locations, but people don’t know where they are.”
“The marathon saved my life. If I had collapsed from a cardiac arrest at any other time while I was out on a run by myself, I probably wouldn’t have survived.
“I want the BHF to get more defibrillators registered in Northern Ireland because, really, it was the defibrillator that got my heart going and saved my life.”