Just one month after Rodney Boulton signed off on a $3000 bill to buy a battery for a defibrillator in Okiwi Bay, the chair of the residents’ association was saved by it.
Rodney was in his garden last Wednesday afternoon when he had a massive heart attack. Two volunteers from the local St John unit rushed to the scene with their brand new defibrillator and used it eight times to shock the 61 year old back to life.
Yesterday Rodney left Nelson Hospital and headed home where he will celebrate his 62nd birthday this Saturday.
“I am very thankful. There’ll be plenty of thank you things coming up,” he says.
“It’s funny because when I think of how lucky I am or anything like that I just well up with bloody tears. I can’t put words to it.”
Okiwi Bay St John volunteer Christine Simpson says the station had an old defibrillator but were told by St John it would give them a brand new one if the community paid for the battery, worth $2800 plus GST.
The residents’ association agreed, although Rodney, chair of the group which represents the 200 households, admitted raising a few questions about the cost of the GST. She says the fact that it has already saved a life shows how important the right equipment is.
“It’s well worth the money isn’t it? It’s another tool we could use and it had a lot of advantages but it’s absolutely brilliant that it’s saved a life. We’re all old buggers in the bay so stroke and heart attacks are our main thing.”
After the 111 call the Summit Rescue Helicopter flew into the bay where the local fire brigade had closed the road so it could land.
Paramedics stabilised Rodney and shortly after he arrived at Nelson Hospital he had a heart stent put in.
He left hospital yesterday morning and says he will buy eight Lotto tickets, one for each shock from the defibrillator, and has promised his doctor to “knock off” smoking.
“It makes you think of the simple things,” says Rodney who also helped fundraise for the St John unit a decade ago.
“The fact is I’m going home instead of being buried. It feels good.”
Christine says the residents at the bay agree: “It’s damn good that he’s lived, magic that we are still going to see him again. There is no better feeling to think we are going to talk to him.”
