Buckie woman relives CPR trauma as new support campaign launched
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
A BUCKIE woman has spoken out about the emotional trauma of apply CPR to her father-in-law in a desperate bid to save his life.
Lynsey Duncan is the Chest Heart and Stroke Scotland (CHSS) Deputy Head of Clinical Services. A registered nurse, she lives in the town with her husband and two daughters.
In November 2021, Lynsey’s father-in-law John collapsed at home after a cardiac arrest. Lynsey battled for 20 minutes to save his life, performing CPR, before paramedics arrived. Sadly, their efforts were in vain and John, 70, passed away.
As a nurse, Lynsey had been involved in CPR before, but the aftermath of John’s death was different because she had never had to administer the treatment to a member of her own family. The experience left her upset but she did not want to share her feelings with her grieving loved ones.
The experience has led her to throw her weight behind the CHSS's new Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest Aftercare project. The charity has partnered with the Scottish Ambulance Service and the Resuscitation Research Group at the University of Edinburgh (RRG) to launch a pilot service to support those who witness or provide CPR to someone who experiences cardiac arrest at home or in the community.
CHSS has produced wallet-sized cards promoting the service for paramedics, police and firefighters to give directly to members of the public at the scene of the incident. Each card includes the advice line number, so people can immediately call an advisor to talk through what happened.
Reliving the tragic day, Lyndsey said: “My father-in-law John was a farmer and he’d been diagnosed with farmer’s lung – that’s a respiratory disease caused by exposure to dust from hay, straw and grain.
"We’d seen a deterioration in his health over a few years, and he and my mother-in-law, Pat, moved from the farm into Buckie, near to where my husband Steven and I and our two girls live.
“We’d been on a family holiday with them two weeks earlier, and I noticed John was quite unwell and struggling to breathe. About a week later, he was given oxygen to have at home to help his breathing.
“On that day – it was November 5, 2021 – my girls had friends over for tea. I was busy making food and Steven had taken the dogs for a walk. He called me and told me to get to his mum and dad’s immediately. I knew something was seriously wrong, so I jumped in the car and headed over.
“Pat met me at the front door and told me John had fallen. He was in the bathroom. As soon as I saw him, I knew he hadn’t fallen. I knew he’d collapsed. Pat was on the phone to 999, telling them John had fallen, but I took the phone and explained he had arrested, and we needed help right away.
“I started to perform CPR. I’m a nurse. I’ve done this before. But it’s very different to be doing this to someone you know, someone you’re close to.
“He had been propped up against the toilet. I got him on to the floor and started chest compressions. I spent 20 minutes doing this. And throughout all of this, my mother-in-law was standing watching. It was an awful experience.
“We live in Buckie, which is fairly rural, so the first people to come were the wildcat responders. They are volunteers who are trained to provide early CPR and defibrillation. One of them took over from me as I was exhausted. Then the paramedics arrived and took control.
“My husband had arrived by then, too. I just ran to him and had a bit of a meltdown. I told him not to go through to the bathroom and kept saying to him ‘I tried, I tried’ because I knew John was gone.
“The paramedics worked on John for another 30 minutes, but it was too late. It was horrific for all of us, especially Pat. She kept saying ‘John wouldn’t want this’. She’d said that to me, but I’m a nurse – once I’d started the compressions, I couldn’t stop. And the paramedics were the same. They had to do everything possible.
“We then had to wait for the police to come because obviously this was a sudden death. And it was only when I was speaking to the police about what had happened that the enormity of it hit me."
The aftermath of the incident proved to be as if not more traumatic for Lynsey than what had just happened.
She continued: “I kept going over it in my head, thinking ‘What just happened?’.
"I had bruises on my hands and cuts on my knees from the force of sitting on the bathroom floor doing CPR for so long. I even lost a toenail because I’d been leaning so heavily on my toes.
“But I couldn’t share any of this with my family because they were grieving. I didn’t want to tell them I was worried I hadn’t done enough. I felt guilty even though I had no reason to.
“That’s why I think this initiative is so important. I’m a trained medical professional, but when a nurse friend called me the next day, I broke down when I told her what had happened. What I really needed was to talk to someone who wasn’t emotionally attached who could reassure me I’d done what I could. And that is hopefully what the advice line will be able to do for anyone involved in an out of hospital cardiac arrest.
“I’ll never underestimate what my mother-in-law went through. She wasn’t only witnessing the death of her husband but her daughter-in-law trying to save him. I can only imagine the emotions she was feeling.
"If the emergency services had been able to give us both a card that said the advice line was there for support, I think she might have made that call. That might have been further down the line for Pat, but for me, it would have been immediately.
“Pat and my husband and my sister-in-law are fully supportive of me telling John’s story like this. They had no idea how this had affected me until they watched the video I made. They want to make sure everyone is supported when they need it after an incident like this.”
Anyone wishing to contact the CHSS Advice Line can do so on 0808 801 0899 or at adviceline@chss.org.uk
