2 weeks Ago By [email protected] (Paige Oldfield)
Joe McEwan was like most young men in their early 20s – he loved sports, travelling and music. But all that changed when he suffered a sudden cardiac arrest while playing lacrosse, changing the course of his life forever. September 17 started off just like any normal day for Joe.
The 22-year-old grabbed his kit and headed out to his local lacrosse club for a tournament. READ MORE: 'I thought my toddler was just shy..
. then doctors told us there's nothing they can do' However, just minutes after stepping onto the pitch, a ball struck him in the back of the neck and he collapsed on the floor. A friend initially thought Joe, who is from the Woodford area of Stockport , must have been faking his injury as it looked like he had just slumped to the ground.
But when he noticed his face had turned blue, it immediately became clear something was seriously wrong. Joe had played lacrosse since childhood (Image: Joe McEwan) Fortunately, Joe was able to receive immediate life-saving care for multiple reasons – the referee was a firefighter, there were several doctors in the crowd and the site had two defibrillators. Joe was immediately defibrillated and both a land and air ambulance arrived at the scene within 10 minutes.
Thanks to the quick-thinking actions of those around him, he was taken to hospital in a stable condition. It was later discovered Joe’s heart had stopped for a whole four minutes, leaving him in a coma which he remained in for 12 hours. Joe can’t remember anything about the incident or the days that followed.
“It was mainly my memory that was horrendous for the first few days and needed time to recover,” the aspiring detective told the Manchester Evening News. Joe (Image: Joe McEwan) “My brother literally had to tell me ‘for the first time’ that I had suffered a cardiac arrest on the pitch well over a hundred times because I’d keep forgetting within a minute or two of being told. “But when my memory had recovered, I felt pretty good.
It was a bit hard at first coming to terms with what had happened, but after the initial shock, I didn’t feel hard done by or ask, ‘Why me?’ or anything like that. “In my mind, this was just some completely unlucky thing that could very easily have happened to anyone else my age, so why shouldn’t it have happened to me? I quickly accepted it and started asking, ‘Why me?’ in regards to why I should survive this when so many others don’t.” Joe in hospital (Image: Joe McEwan) In hospital, Joe was diagnosed with Brugada Syndrome, a heart condition that can cause sudden cardiac arrest.
Sudden cardiac arrest, or SCA, is the sudden loss of all heart activity due to an irregular heart rhythm. Despite the diagnosis, once Joe’s memory had improved, he began a remarkable recovery. By the time January 2024 rolled around, Joe was back to playing full-contact lacrosse and working.
Although he says he’s “incredibly privileged” to have recovered so well, Joe says his new life has been changed in small ways. Now living with an implanted defibrillator, Joe has also made other adjustments including drinking less alcohol and avoiding metal detectors. "I now solely drink beer (when consuming alcohol) because it’s easy to keep track of how much I’ve had and stop drinking well before I’m anywhere near drunk," the law graduate said.
"There’s other little changes like avoiding metal detectors because of the defibrillator I now have in my chest, but they are barely inconveniences." Joe has had to make life adjustments (Image: Joe McEwan) Despite the lifestyle changes, Joe says he feels thankful every day that he is still here. “I’ve heard of so many others who of course sadly passed away as a result of the same thing that happened to me, but if not had to make major life adjustments like giving up sport, stopping working, taking daily medication, etc,” he said.
“This is why I wanted to do this charity trek because I want to show how immensely grateful I am to be in a position to still be able to do this sort of thing and give back." Joe is currently undertaking a mammoth trek that spans 1,864 miles across New Zealand to raise money for UK charity Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) and to help fund heart screenings for young people across the UK . Joe says he feels extremely lucky to be alive (Image: Joe McEwan) But he says his journey isn’t just about raising funds – it's also about gratitude and perspective.
"Twelve young people die every week from this in the UK,” he told the MEN. “624 a year. 624 families left with a sudden hole in their lives and absolutely no time to prepare for it.
“The really tragic part is for those who sadly lose their lives to this, their families have no time to prepare. “I understand this first hand from hearing about it from my parents and brother in particular. My parents were just a few days into a holiday in Cyprus when they received news I’d collapsed.
“My brother was down in London. For at least an hour, both my parents and brother thought I’d be dead by the time they got to the hospital. Gone, just like that.
No warning, no time to prepare. For me this was a relatively easy experience. For them, for an hour or so, it was the most scared they’ve ever been in their life.
Joe is now raising awareness (Image: Joe McEwan) “If walking 3,000km across a country has the potential to introduce the right person to heart screenings and reveal they have an underlying heart condition so it can be appropriately treated, it would be worth doing a hundred times over. Because I don’t think anybody should have to rely on luck.” The good news is that although shocking events like Joe's experience on the football pitch are still happening, there is greater awareness around the topic of sudden cardiac arrest.
More young people these days are interested in having their hearts screened by CRY, the charity has said – with the number of people in the UK currently registered standing at 900,000. Dr Steven Cox, CEO of the charity, said: “Every week, 12 apparently fit and healthy young (aged 35 and under) people in the UK die suddenly from a previously undiagnosed heart condition. “In 80 per cent of these cases, there will have been no signs or symptoms of a heart defect until it is too late, which is why CRY believes screening is so vitally important (particularly for those involved in regular, physical activity).
As such, CRY now tests around 30,000 young people each year, aged between 14 and 35, with more than 310,000 young people, to date, having been screened in total. Joe during his trek (Image: Joe McEwan) “However, as awareness and understanding grows, so does demand – and the current list of young people who have registered an interest to have their hearts screened by CRY currently stands at a staggering 90,000. “Our team of mobile screening vans is out ‘on the road,’ delivering screening at multiple venues in every corner of the UK, 7 days a week.
And, every other Saturday (sometimes more frequently if funding allows) we are able to screen a further 100 young people at our National Screening Centre, based at CRY’s Head Office in Leatherhead, Surrey. “CRY believes that every young person should have the choice to have their hearts tested – with the results of their ECG tracing read and interpreted by a specially trained cardiac expert. But, there is simply not the funding or capacity to deliver screening on this scale – and so CRY will continue to campaign for cross-party MP support and to lobby the National Screening Committee until this becomes a feasible and funded reality.
Joe travelling (Image: Joe McEwan) “As CRY receives no government funding, our UK-wide screening programme is currently only possible because of the tireless support CRY receives from bereaved families (their friends and the wider local community – including many local businesses) to help us provide this service free to the public. “For almost 30 years, CRY has been supported by those who’ve been affected by the tragedy of young sudden cardiac death. And, here at CRY we never forget that this support is driven by the will to prevent others from having to endure the same devastating grief as they have.
" To donate to Joe's fundraiser, visit the link by clicking here..
