"My family kept me alive for 25 minutes with CPR”

Andy Barber, from Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire had just turned 60 when he had a cardiac arrest. Afterwards he was diagnosed with heart failure.

Andy has been determined to improve his health with exercise. He feels he owes it to his family, who saved his life by performing CPR for 25 minutes until the ambulance arrived. 

Life before the cardiac arrest

Working as a sales manager in the years before his cardiac arrest, Andy hadn’t had the healthiest lifestyle. “I was either sitting behind a desk or driving a car around the country. At the end of a long working day, the last thing I wanted to do was exercise. And I enjoyed my beer, coffee and food, so I weighed 97 kilos and didn’t have a healthy BMI.

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Appointment delays in lockdown

A health check at the beginning of 2020 had flagged that Andy was overweight and had high cholesterol. But meetings with health professionals to discuss how he could make lifestyle changes to manage his cholesterol levels got pushed back when the country went into lockdown. “You could say I was a victim of the pandemic,” says Andy.

You could say I was a victim of the pandemic

He also found himself very stressed. He was laid off in March 2020 and was still dealing with the pressure of having to sell his mother’s bungalow, who had died the previous year, in 2019.  

“I was on medication for acid reflux. What I now think were probably symptoms of heart problems I passed off at the time as acid reflux.” 

• Visit our hub for tips on reducing your cholesterol 

Cardiac arrest and CPR

20 October 2020 started off as a relatively normal day for Andy; he had gone out and mowed the lawn. But he went to bed feeling ill and spent the night “up and down like a yoyo, in great pain.” 

The next morning when everyone else in the house was up, Andy’s wife persuaded him to call 111. “While I was talking on the phone, I collapsed and had a cardiac arrest. Fortunately my son was with me. He managed to angle me as I fell so I didn't crack my head on the wardrobe.” 

Also fortunately for him, his son, wife and daughter had all been trained in CPR. “They gave me chest compressions for 25 minutes until the paramedics turned up. Then it was like buses, three ambulances turned up at once.” 

I felt lucky to be alive

Since it was during lockdown, Andy woke up in Wycombe General Hospital alone, isolated from his family. “It was probably scarier for my family than for me. I felt lucky to be alive.” 

He had had stents fitted and was able to leave hospital after a week. “I was so grateful to my family and determined to live as long as possible. I had to get myself fit and healthy,” says Andy. 

• Learn how to save a life with CPR 

Slowly building back fitness

Recovering during the pandemic, Andy didn’t have access to in-person cardiac rehab but made the most of phone calls with a heart failure physio. 

“I wasn’t fit before but I had been able to do things like mowing the lawn and shrug it off an hour later. After the cardiac arrest, I’d walk five minutes, then have to rest all day,” recalls Andy. 

Andy spent a month simply walking around the house but built up slowly to walking for around 15 minutes a day.

“I’d do it in a few five or three-minute sessions before I felt fatigued. My advice to others with heart failure is you don’t need to do it in one go, if you’re not able to, you’ll just disappoint yourself, so it’s better to break it up through the day.”  

He then progressed to being able to walk outside, 50 metres or so to the end of the cul-de-sac where he lives, then a 400-metre loop along the road. 

• Learn about our eight-week cardiac rehab email programme
• Get inspiration for walking with a heart condition

Getting back to daily activities

After getting recurring pain in his leg, Andy switched to using an exercise bike. His bike allows him to exercise without putting weight on his feet. It has a feature where he can add “resistance” to make it harder to pedal and get more of a workout. “I started off without the resistance. Now I’ll do a 5-minute warm up without the resistance, then add the resistance to give me a cardio workout.” 

They used to be chores; now they're a luxury

Over the last year, Andy has gone from weighing 97 to 82 kilos and has been able to build up to doing activities he enjoys like gardening again. He’s also happy that he’s able to do daily activities such as hoovering and cleaning the cars. “They used to be chores; now they’re a luxury.” 

But Andy knows it’s important to pace himself. He finds exercising for three days, followed by a day of rest, works for him. “Sometimes, I push myself for too long in the garden, because I’ve lost track of time. I start to feel dizzy or sick and I have to sit down,” says Andy.  

Setting goals 

“When you’re healthy, getting fit can be about pushing yourself beyond what you’ve done before. But if you’ve got heart failure, you need to give yourself time – weeks, months, whatever it takes – to build yourself up gently.” 

Now that Andy is returning to normal activities and is on track towards a healthier body weight, he has other goals he is also focussed on. He has a referral for his leg pain booked in for March and is hoping that 2022 is the year he can return to walking for exercise – and get back on his motorbike.

Exercise is taking me on a positive journey

Andy had been hoping to use his retirement to volunteer for Serv, a local branch of the blood bikes charity network that provides emergency motorcycle courier services to transport blood and medical supplies to hospitals.   

In the meantime, he’ll keep to his exercise bike. “Exercise is taking me on a positive journey to towards the place I want to be.” 

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