Paramedic saves best friend’s life

Apr 15 2008 by Gregory Tindle, South Wales Echo

IT WAS a horror moment when paramedic Dylan Parry arrived at the scene of a crash and realised his best friend was lying lifeless on the road.

But within minutes he had saved Stephen Morgan’s life.

Stephen was driving when he collapsed at the wheel from a heart attack and crashed his car into a roadside barrier. He had earlier woken up with indigestion-type pain and was on route to the local hospital under doctor’s orders because he had a heart attack two years previously.

His wife Jennifer, who was at his side, said: “We were on our way with Stephen driving when we suddenly veered into the pedestrian barrier at the side of the road. I looked across and Stephen’s eyes were shut with his hands up in front of his face.

“Two cars behind were two female police officers and people had managed to get Stephen out and they started working on him. And then Dylan arrived and I shouted to him. Dylan said: ‘Oh, no. It’s not Steve, is it?’”

Dylan, 45, a paramedic for 15 years, said: “He was lying there and basically he’d gone. There was no pulse, he wasn’t breathing and his heartbeat was very irregular. It was also a shock for me to see him there.

“The police officers had done a great job starting the resuscitation so soon and I took over.

“We got Steve hooked up to the defibrillator and shocked him and that got his heart going and we were giving him oxygen but he still didn’t have a pulse.

“I think Steve was lucky, very lucky, that there were two people there immediately to give him CPR and that I was there within a couple of minutes in the Rapid Response Vehicle. But I was concerned that he wouldn’t make it because when I got there he was gone.”

Stephen, 63, said he owed his life to Dylan’s prompt actions.

The retired brewery worker, of Porset Drive, Caerphilly, remembers nothing from that day last January.

Jennifer, 62, who used to work with Dylan’s wife Sue, has written to the Welsh Ambulance Service praising their friend for saving her husband’s life.

Stephen spent several weeks in the cardiac unit at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff but is now home. He said: “I’m very grateful to Dylan and his colleagues. He was absolutely brilliant.

“In fact the whole NHS has been brilliant.”

greg.tindle@mediawales.co.uk