Call to Healthline results in lifesaving surgery
At about 7.45am on Friday 24 September 2010 David Allo began to get strange pains in his arm and back. ‘He looked dreadful,’ remembers his wife Shirley.
David and Shirley Allo
Due to a health problem of her own, Shirley was unable to speak at the time so she grabbed the Healthline magnet off the fridge and urged David to call the number.
The nurse who answered quickly assessed the seriousness of David’s symptoms and arranged for an ambulance. It turned out he was having a myocardial infarction and he ended up in theatre in Wellington Hospital that afternoon having a lifesaving quadruple bypass.
‘I was told three of my coronary arteries were blocked and the fourth restricted by a blood clot,’ says David.
The surgery went well and nine months down the track David has made a good recovery, but he and Shirley realise things could have been very different if he hadn’t got urgent medical treatment.
They are particularly grateful to Healthline and Shirley has since expressed that gratitude in writing.
The letter singled out Heather, the nurse who answered David’s call.
‘Thank you for Healthline and for the dedicated nurses who man it. We are all too aware of how different the outcome could have been had it not been for Heather’s prompt action. Every minute counted in the interventions that kept David alive until surgery.’
Another thing David and Shirley are thankful for is that their Healthline fridge magnet was not one of the ones to go when Shirley had a major cull of them the week before!
Page last updated: 22 May 2012
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