A Story of Surviving an out of hospital cardiac arrest.
In this heartfelt episode of Ordinary Life, Kitty and Emma welcome back Kitty’s husband, Mike, to share his remarkable story of survival after a sudden cardiac arrest in 2020. One moment he was racing his motorbike; the next, he was clinically dead for over half an hour. Against all odds, Mike pulled through — but life since has been far from simple.
Together, the trio talk about trauma, recovery, invisible disabilities, and redefining identity after life-changing events. Mike opens up about brain fatigue, loss of work, and the slow process of accepting a “new normal,” while Kitty and Emma reflect on caregiving, resilience, and humour through hardship.
A raw, honest, and unexpectedly uplifting conversation about survival, love, and living differently when life refuses to go to plan.
What are your experiences? Tell us in the comments or get in touch via the red button!
Transcript
(Contains errors – put together with AI and the names are sometimes wrong.)
[Intro]
Emma: Welcome to Ordinary Life on Coast Access Radio 104.7 FM, with your hosts, Kitty Doyle and Emma Kyriacou.
Kitty: Hi Emma! I didn’t even get to say my name!
Emma: Well, that’s just charming, isn’t it?
Kitty: Hello, Emma. That was very professional.
Emma: Hello! Yes. How are you doing?
Kitty: I’m good.
Emma: We’re not having “fun with Parkinson’s” today. We’re going to talk honestly about other stuff — the ups and downs of life with chronic illness. And today, we’re here with your husband, Mike. Hello, Mike.
Mike: Hi. It’s nice to be here.
Kitty: Good to have you here again. You’ve been on before, but this is the first time with me and Emma, eh?
Mike: Yeah. I have to live with them every day.
Emma: Ordinary Life is brought to you by Cover Yours, your trusted insurance broker. From quote to claim, they’re in your corner. Contact them at coveryours.co.nz.
Kitty: That’s so good! You should do that all the time.
Emma: Oh, thanks. I will.
Kitty: So that’s the formal stuff. And we usually say we’re not medical experts, but — well — we’re still not medical experts.
Emma: Still not.
Kitty: But we know stuff about life with stuff.
Emma: We do. And Mike knows an awful lot about life with him.
Mike: Yes. And although you say you’re not medical experts, you do now know an awful lot more about your own ailments than you ever thought you’d want to.
Kitty: So true. You end up picking up so much, eh?
Emma: Yes, you really do. So, Mike, do you want to give us a little recap on what’s happened with you?
Mike: Sure. Not only do I live with Kitty and observe her Parkinson’s quite closely and the struggles with that, one might say I wanted to outdo her.
Kitty: It’s not a competition, Mike.
Mike: Or it is! On the 18th of October 2020 — so that’ll be five years in a fortnight — I went from being Mr “Hoorah, charge around, I’m invincible, don’t come between me and my work” to having a sudden cardiac arrest while riding my motorbike at Manfeild Racecourse.
Fortunately, I was on the track, so there were lots of people watching me. I had just over thirty minutes of CPR — in the middle of a field. Luckily, they had two AEDs on site.
Emma: What’s an AED, Mike?
Mike: An Automatic Emergency Defibrillator. You’ll see these yellow boxes appearing — there’s one not far from here in Mahara Place, Waikanae. Basically, if someone suffers a cardiac arrest, you can phone 111, they’ll give you the unlock code, and the AED shocks the person’s heart back into a normal rhythm.
Then St John arrived, and their defibrillator managed to return me to a sinus rhythm. I was transported to Palmerston North Hospital and put into ICU.
Once I was settled, my family were told I had about a 2% chance of survival — and if I did survive, I’d likely need 24-hour care for everything. So, things were pretty grim.
I was in ICU for three days in a medically induced coma. Then I was moved to a ward. For me, none of this happened. One moment I was riding my motorbike — my only memory of that day — and the next thing I remember, I was in hospital, mid-conversation with Kitty and the kids, feeling awful and just wanting to go back to sleep. Ten days had vanished.
Emma: Wow, so you were out for ten days. No memory of that time?
Mike: None whatsoever.
Emma: And what was going on for you at that time, Kitty?
Kitty: Well, I’d gone along to be the dutiful girlfriend, standing at the side thinking, “There’s my boyfriend, he’s so cool on his motorbike.” I bumped into someone I knew, and we were chatting while I took photos of my hot boyfriend on his bike.
Then we noticed the race had stopped, and I thought, “That’s strange.” I looked out and saw a bike in the middle of the field — I just knew it was his. I thought, if he was okay, he’d have come straight back to tell me.
We checked the pit area first, just to be sure before panicking. But then I was taken out there — and the first thing I thought was, “But we’re supposed to be going out!”
I saw this figure on the ground, and his skin was the colour of gunmetal grey. They say that when you’re deprived of oxygen, your skin goes grey — it really does. I thought, “If he survives this, they’re doing CPR really well.”
Watching that, in the middle of a field, without proper equipment, was something else. I remember the ambulance man coming up and saying, “We’re taking him to Palmerston North Hospital — can you get there?” And I just said, “No.” Thankfully, someone gave me a lift.
I sound glib now, but if I think about it too much, I get teary — it was really traumatic.
Emma: It was a big event, eh?
Kitty: Yeah.
Emma: So fast forward — the long-term effects haven’t been as bad as predicted, thankfully.
Kitty: You can definitely still talk!
Emma: So, what are you living with now, Mike?
Mike: The official cause of my cardiac arrest is unknown — but everyone, including me, puts it down to stress. I’d been working crazy hours as a senior IT project manager on high-stress projects.
Emma: There’s definitely a story there about pushing yourself too hard. Did the doctors say anything about diagnosis or recovery?
Kitty: Tell them what happens when you go to the doctor.
Mike: I’ve been left with suspected diffuse hypoxic brain damage — basically, instead of one area like a stroke, I’ve got little bits all through my brain that were damaged. It means I can do everything I used to, but everything is insanely hard and exhausting, especially cognitive work.
I tried going back to work for eight months — the best I managed was six hours a week, split into two 45-minute slots, twice a day. Then I’d need a full day of sleep. It was just too much.
Even simple things like going to the shop for milk or watching TV were overwhelming. The images on screen actually made my brain hurt.
Emma: That sounds similar to what people describe after concussion.
Mike: Exactly. And I’ve also discovered I have atrial fibrillation — which I’ve actually had since I was a child.
Emma: What’s that?
Mike: Your heart has four chambers — two small atriums on top, two large ventricles below. Atrial fibrillation is when the top chambers flutter instead of beating properly. “Fibrillation” just means they’re flapping around.
Emma: So, it loses its rhythm?
Mike: Exactly. And ventricular fibrillation is when the bottom ones do the same — that’s when blood stops moving properly through your body.
Emma: So, the main impact for you is fatigue. Tell us what that’s like — being off work and managing that at home.
Mike: At first, I used to compare myself to the old me, and that was depressing.
Emma: Did you go through a kind of grief for that person?
Mike: Yes. I described it to Kitty as “the train.” My work used to be like a train — I was the conductor, the one making it all work. After my cardiac arrest, the train would still come, and I’d get on for a while, but then it would move on without me. Eventually, I’d just be standing on the platform, watching it go by.
Kitty: He said it was like looking through the open doors and windows — they’d smile and wave at first, but there was no room for him. And after a while, they didn’t even wave.
Mike: Yeah. And that was my life. I hadn’t realised how much we define ourselves by our jobs until that was gone.
Emma: It’s true — one of the first things people ask is, “What do you do for work?” We’re so work-oriented as a society.
Mike: And all that just vanished. Then you’re left thinking, “Who am I now?”
Emma: How has this played out for you two as a couple and family?
Mike: Honestly, I think my cardiac arrest has actually made our relationship work. While I don’t fully understand Kitty’s challenges, and she doesn’t understand all of mine, we both get the struggle.
You’ve talked before about “drop-off” — mine’s different, but it’s similar in feeling. We both live with invisible disabilities. It’s frustrating, especially when you look fine on the outside but you’re struggling just to get through the supermarket without collapsing from fatigue.
Emma: Yeah, that’s really hard. We’ll dig into that a bit more next time.
Kitty: Sounds good.
Emma: That’s it from us today on Ordinary Life.
Kitty: Me, Kitty.
Emma: Me, Emma.
Mike: And me, Mike.
Kitty: Big thanks to Cover Yours for having our backs and helping you plan for the messy, beautiful stuff life throws at us.
Emma: That’s right.
All: Ka kite anō!