colleague from work saved my life
On November 16, my wife and I came to my parents’ home near Poznań because they were leaving for their dream vacation – a cruise around the Persian Gulf – and since they take care of my grandmother, they didn’t want to leave her alone. They can always count on us. On Thursday, November 21, after work we went to pick up the stroller we had bought for our son, and that evening I was still putting it together.
Friday, November 22, 2024, 6:33 a.m. – just an ordinary day. I arrived at work, not knowing that a little over an hour later something would happen that no one could have expected. At 7:43, I walked out of the restroom, and just before the door to my office I suddenly collapsed. That was the beginning of a dramatic fight for my life – I wasn’t breathing, my heart had stopped. I woke up 19 days later in the ICU at the hospital on Szwajcarska Street in Poznań. I learned that I had suffered a sudden cardiac arrest – my heart did not beat for over 45 minutes. My colleague, Heniu, performed CPR for the first 15 minutes until the paramedics arrived. A coworker had an EpiPen, which was administered to me after a consultation via the emergency line 112.
My family went through a nightmare at that time – my sister was on a 2-year assignment in Vilnius, Lithuania, and my parents were on their “once-in-a-lifetime” vacation on the other side of the globe when they got the call that my heart had stopped and my condition was critical. For a parent, that’s the worst thing to hear – complete helplessness. My sister flew back on November 23, but was advised not to drive due to her emotional state. My parents returned on November 24, but they couldn’t enter the ICU because they tested positive for Covid. During all that time, my wife Sandra was by my side – she was five months pregnant – and my brother-in-law Patryk took care of her, looked after her emotional well-being, and didn’t tell her everything. He was the one who picked her up when the ambulance brought me to the hospital.
I only learned about all these facts after waking up, 19 days later, when I came out of deep sedation. I remember the moment when my consciousness returned – Dr. Arek, the anesthesiologist, appeared above me. I remember him asking if I wanted to call someone, and I dictated a phone number to him from memory. I asked him, “What happened? Why am I here?” At first he didn’t answer – which I understand now. He didn’t want to tell me, fearing my reaction, since patients respond very differently.
I was transferred to the cardiology ward, where I stayed for a week. I had to learn to walk and move my arms again – my brain remembered how, but my muscles were terribly weak. Ms. Renata, the physiotherapist, came to help me regain my motor skills through passive and active exercises. My greatest motivation was my wife Sandra, and the fact that I now had to support her, not the other way around, because we were about to become parents. I remember my first independent trip with a walker to the bathroom. Inside the stall, I fell because I couldn’t keep my balance, but I got up, grabbed the walker, and went back. I remember it clearly, because the bed next to mine was occupied by a church sexton from Nowy Tomyśl, who reported me that I had fainted in the bathroom, which wasn’t true 😂. At my bed, my wife and my mother were already waiting. It felt strange relearning how to walk, or even how to grab and lift objects, but I set myself one goal – to leave the hospital on my own, without assistance.
I was discharged on December 17, the first patient in that hospital to be fitted with a Zoll LifeVest. I also received 120 pages of medical documentation, where I learned about all the tests performed – coronary angiography, Holter, ECG and others – all showing that structurally my heart was fine. I also found out that doctors had postponed implanting a traditional ICD because I developed pneumonia after a tracheostomy. On December 19, I asked my wife to take me to my workplace, because I wanted to thank my heroes. There were tears – but tears of happiness and gratitude. I had a referral to a neurologist, but fortunately my EEG and brain MRI showed no white or gray matter changes. Daily exercises paid off – my hands stopped trembling, and my walks, even in the freezing cold, grew longer and less exhausting.
On February 3, 2025, I returned to the hospital for a scheduled electrophysiology study. I was nervous, because I have a real fear of needles and IVs. I warned the nurses when they admitted me, since they hadn’t seen that side of me before – the previous procedures were done while I was unconscious. Luckily, the test was done early in the morning, so I didn’t have time to stress too much – though I still remember seeing the doctor with the electrode that was about to be inserted through a vein in my groin into my heart. The procedure itself was painless; sometimes my heart fluttered a bit under the influence of medication, but no arrhythmia could be induced, and no structural heart defect was found. The cause remained idiopathic ventricular fibrillation.
That’s why on February 24 I was admitted again, and the next morning I received the hospital’s first subcutaneous ICD (S-ICD), implanted under the guidance of Prof. Paweł Syska, Dr. Andrzej Bolewski, and Dr. Michał Guliński.
On March 8, I became a proud father.
After everything that happened, my company immediately installed an AED on the wall, properly marked and available 24/7 to everyone. And every single employee went through first aid training.
In May, I returned to work and began telling contractors how important first aid training and AED access are. I also started sharing my story during first aid trainings organized for free by the fire department – showing that anyone can save a life, you don’t have to be a medic.
This whole experience showed me what wonderful people, family, friends, and colleagues I have. Many visited me both in the ICU and in the cardiology ward. In the ICU, for example, my best friend came with his wife, brother, and sister-in-law. They brought me a unicorn balloon (which I only found out about after waking up). When I left the hospital, I went to the ward where the doctors and nurses do the hardest work in the whole hospital, to thank them – and I left the unicorn there, hoping it would bring someone else good luck.
Today, I function without any lasting damage, as if my body hadn’t registered any of the “bad” that happened – except that I now carry a little guardian under my skin, watching to make sure such a situation never happens again.