Adrian Morgan died of a heart attack in 2020.
Twice.
Luckily for Adrian and all his friends and family in community, the Emergency Department team at Bairnsdale Regional Health Service brought him back to life (twice) with a defibrillator.
And so the man known locally to all as “Ringo” is alive and kicking and with us today.
Now, he wants his story to serve as motivation for mob to look after their own heart health.
“For me it was the cholesterol,” Ringo says. “Years of eating lots of fried food, fatty foods, fatty meats. I had a bit of a sweet tooth too, when I was young. I remember I’d have one of those cream buns pretty much every day.”
That’s not uncommon.
Ringo is certainly not alone in being a bit partial to food that isn’t good for him. The smokes didn’t help either.
But where Ringo is a bit different from so many others is that he got a second chance.
“I’ve had friends and relatives that have gone to sleep and just never woke up,” he said. “Heart attacks. What I think about now is that if only they had gone for a check up, they might have caught it and they’d still be alive today.”
“I think that about myself too. I should have had a heart check sooner.”
Ringo is urging all mob over the age of 30 to get down to GEGAC from 10am – 3pm on Thursday, October 17, for a Heart Health Check Day.
There will be nurses and doctors doing heart checks, the quit smoking mob will be there, plus giveaways, activities and food.
“Don’t wait for a heart attack,” Ringo says. “We lose too many of our community to things that are preventable. Do the right thing by your family, and come down and get a check.”
The night that changed his life was sometime during footy season, in the first few months of the COVID pandemic.
“I was at home, watching the Friday night game,” he remembers. “One minute everything is normal. Then I started to get these chest pains, I just didn’t feel right. I’ve always had problems with heartburn, and this felt like heartburn only worse.”
“Then I was dizzy, and sweating. I told them to take me to the hospital. Someone said they’d call an ambulance but I said ‘no, I’m not waiting for an ambulance, I need to go now.’”
It was lucky he did.
“As soon as they got me down on a bed I went into cardiac arrest,” Ringo says. “Then I remember coming to, they brought me back with the defibrillator. Five minutes later it happened again.”
“I died twice on that table that night.”
Ringo said it was while he was recovering in Melbourne that doctors discovered his arteries were blocked by too much cholesterol.
Do you reckon having a heart attack, dying twice and being bought back to life would change you?
“Yeah, of course it did,” Ringo says. “The biggest thing was diet. I stay away from the sweet stuff and the fatty stuff now, as best I can. I might have pizza or something once a week, but I try and eat healthy as much as possible.”
It’s amazing the difference a little change can make.
Thanks to that change in diet, and a little regular exercise, Ringo’s cholesterol levels are down and his heart is healthier.
And he’s still playing bloody good footy.
Last week Ringo was over in Fremantle, Western Australia, for the AFL Masters National Carnival where he played for both the NSW/ACT Mens 55s team, and the Mens 50s Vic Country team, winning a grand final with Vic Country.
Oh, and he also played for the Indigenous team, too.
Legend.