A young man who suffered a cardiac arrest near public transport in Sydney’s CBD rush hour has been reunited with the paramedics who saved his life.
Zufi Abdul, 17, had been having lunch and watching a movie with friends when he fainted and then thought he had been kidnapped when he woke up to find himself in the back of an ambulance.
The teen privately thanked the three paramedics every night before going to bed, but he had the opportunity to thank them in person on Sunday.
“Finally meeting these guys today and just saying thank you, even though knowing the word thank you is very short for me and them, it meant the world,” Abdul told 10 News.
The 16-year-old had been dating last year when he collapsed and suffered sudden cardiac arrest, a rare occurrence for teenagers.
Zufi Abdul (pictured) suffered sudden cardiac arrest in the middle of Sydney’s CBD in January.
This week Mr Abdul had to thank the paramedics who saved his life (pictured Mr Abdul and paramedic Jeremy Beck).
A male bystander performed life-saving CPR on Mr Abdul near a CBD tram stop while he waited for paramedic heroes to arrive.
‘“There were probably thousands of people surrounding him in the pouring rain, and we needed to get him to the ambulance so we could do what we needed to do, so the defibrillator could work,” said paramedic Jeremy Beck.
“Being as young as he is and having such a life ahead of him, it’s fantastic that he’s coming to us.”
Abdul was clinically dead for about 10 minutes before paramedics revived him with a defibrillator.
Now, she wants to encourage more people to take CPR courses and first aid training as she works to find the stranger who performed CPR on her.
“If you’re looking, I’d live to have a cup of tea,” Mr Abdul said.
He Heart Foundation described sudden cardiac arrest in people under 35 as “very rare.”
“The baseline risk in Australia for people under 35 is 1.3 per 100,000 people per year, with 15 per cent occurring during or immediately after exercise,” he says.
‘In Australia, across all ages, there are 20,000 out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrests each year and sadly only 10 per cent of people survive.
‘Cardiac arrest is when the heart stops pumping blood through the body, and can occur due to a heart attack or another cause.’
