A Heart Stopping Ordeal

A Farmlands TFO found himself in the middle of a medical drama recently, when he helped resuscitate a farmer who had gone into cardiac arrest. He’s using the experience to spread the word about the benefits of having defibrillators on-farm.

Mike Collings, based at the Farmlands Taihape store, is also a long-serving member of the local volunteer fire brigade, which covers a vast distance in the lower North Island. His first aid training came in handy earlier this year, when he was attending a stock sale event at a customer’s sheep and beef station. The frightening incident occurred shortly after they had finished the sheep sale.

“We had about a 200-300m walk from where they were selling the sheep to where they were going to start selling the cattle. Apparently, this gentleman was already at the cattle yard. He was up on the railing and just having a bit of a look, and he just had a heart attack and fell off the railing, went down with no sign of life, no nothing. He was in cardiac arrest.” A couple of onlookers with first aid training, including another volunteer firefighter, started administering CPR on the man. Luckily, the station had a defibrillator on hand, thanks to a conversation Mike had with the station manager five years earlier. “I was out doing some work with him, and I said, you probably should look at buying one of these (defibrillators), not knowing that five years later I was going to be using it on someone.”

Mike says the station manager also had the foresight to bring the defibrillator down from his house to the woolshed. “He brought it down that morning, threw it in the ute, so it was only probably about 40-50m away from where we were. I was just walking up towards the cattle yard, which was probably about 20m away from where it happened. Then all of a sudden, I heard all this yelling: ‘Help! We need some help! Someone's having a cardiac arrest.’”

Right Place, Right Time

Mike is used to dealing with emergencies; he says the Taihape Volunteer Fire Brigade does between 80 and 100 calls a year, a mixture of medical events and motor vehicle accidents as well as fires. “I've been in it 27 years now, so I've been involved for a fair while. It's a bit of a family affair really. My father was a fire chief, my brother and uncle have been members and my cousin's in it now, so it's a bit of a family tradition.” 

Despite his vast experience as a firefighter, Mike says moments like the one he experienced out on the station are relatively rare. He says his first thought during the latest incident was “Oh crap”, but his training quickly kicked into gear.

“We've obviously had a little bit of medical training, but this was a little bit different as normally when we're getting called, the delay in time means we don’t always get a successful outcome, so to be Johnny-on-the-spot with the right gear is very rare.” With others in attendance giving the man chest compressions and checking his airway, Mike took on the task of using the defibrillator. “We shocked him and got him back, then we laid him in the recovery position and he went back into cardiac arrest again. We ended up shocking him about four times in the end.” Incredibly, the man survived the ordeal despite the batteries on the defibrillator being overdue for replacement. “The batteries actually went flat on the last shot,” Mike recalls. “I checked and I think they were supposed to be replaced in December 2023. It’s a good reminder to make sure that you replace the batteries on your defibrillator every five years.”

Lessons Learned

Mike says the man he helped save has made a full recovery, and talk of the life-or-death drama spread quickly around farmers in the region. “It was a real wake-up call for a lot of people. Since then, we’ve had other stations in the area purchasing defibrillators for themselves, and getting training for their staff on how to use them. The local stock agents are also looking into it.”

Mike knows his local farmers well, having worked at Farmlands Taihape for almost a decade, including three years out on the road as a TFO. “I have thoroughly enjoyed being able to get out amongst the shareholders and live their businesses.” However, he says this year's “bloody hard up this way” with lamb prices still in the doldrums.

“Everyone's in survival mode. The beef price has stayed relatively good, and that's probably what's kept a lot of the farmers going. But obviously wool’s worth nothing; back in the day it used to be worth loads and that used to be part of the income, where obviously now it's not. It costs them to take it off. “I would say we're going to be stuck in this rut for at least another 18 months to two years. Even if it does come right, it's going to take a long time for the farmers to get back to spending because they’re probably only paying the interest at the moment, not paying any capital.” Despite his customers’ woes, there’s one product Mike is not having a hard time selling: defibrillators. He says in isolated areas far from the nearest ambulance or hospital, they can be lifesavers. “Farmers around the country can learn from this. We proved a bit of a point with the importance of quick intervention; 10 minutes could be the difference between life and death.”