Man survives heart attack to marry fiancée after she saved his life in lockdown

Amy Donalson and Lee Stephenson were the picture of happiness like any regular couple – engaged and looking forward to a perfect wedding.

But it was on the evening of March 20 last year, just as the first coronavirus lockdown was announced, when ‘everything changed’ for them.

Amy, 28, has now told Metro.co.uk the story of how her fiancé Lee had a close brush with death after a heart attack to help raise awareness.

With coronavirus infections rising and the announcement of the closure of pubs and restaurants, the pair decided to stay at home in Newcastle and get a takeaway instead.

But Lee, 32, struggled to eat, complaining of chest pains which were getting worse, and soon spread to his arms.

‘We Googled the symptoms and panicked a bit when we read they could be the sign of a heart attack, but thought that couldn’t be the case as he was so young and he was insisting that I didn’t ring 999 for an ambulance,’ Amy, who works at Newcastle United, explained.

‘Looking back, I should obviously have called for an ambulance, but Lee was worried about going into hospital during the pandemic and because the hospitals were so busy and felt he didn’t want to waste anyone’s time if it turned out not to be a heart attack.

‘Obviously now we know now that was the wrong thing to do.’

At around 10pm Lee, who works for EDF Energy, said he wanted to go to bed, but was still in pain and uncomfortable.

‘His face looked grey and he was just gulping down water,’ Amy said. ‘Lee finally went to bed but I was really worried by then and kept checking in on him every five minutes.’

Unable to sleep, Amy sat in bed next to him looking up symptoms online when suddenly Lee started ‘making a strange noise – like a drawn-out snore’.

‘When I turned the light on, I just started panicking – he wasn’t responding to me shouting and his eyes were rolling back in his head,’ she recalled.

‘I was shouting at him to talk to me and shaking him, then I immediately dialled 999 and put it on speakerphone.

‘My first thought was that he might be having a seizure, he was only 31 then and I thought he was too young to be having a heart attack or going into cardiac arrest.’

But a call handler immediately told Amy to start CPR on Lee, so she had to pull his dead weight off the bed onto the floor.

‘As I went to get Lee on the floor, his back was drenched in sweat and his hands flopped onto my back and I could feel they were freezing cold,’ she said.

‘I started chest compressions and as I was pushing down Lee started making a strange noises, his arm would twitch up every now and again and I thought, “He’s alive.”

‘But I was confused as to why he wasn’t waking up. As time went on I was just shouting, “Please don’t die,” and telling him I loved him, and shouting at the call handler asking where the ambulance was.’

She said although the ambulance only took nine minutes to arrive, it ‘felt like a lifetime’.

Amy continued CPR until a second paramedic arrived and took over, and the team shocked him three or four times before Lee regained consciousness.

They worked on him for around 45 minutes before managing to stabilise him and rushed him to hospital.

‘A paramedic said afterwards that Lee had gained consciousness so quickly because I had started CPR immediately and kept the oxygen going to his brain before they arrived, which shows the importance of starting CPR as soon as possible,’ she added.

A scan in hospital showed Lee’s right coronary artery was completely blocked, which had caused him to have a heart attack and then go into cardiac arrest. He had a stent fitted and another two later last year.

Lee told Metro.co.uk: ‘Obviously I don’t have any memory at all of what happened – I just remember waking up in hospital being told what had happened to me and being very confused and wanting to know why it had happened.

‘I also had no idea when I came round what Amy had done – that she had saved my life.

‘But when I found out I was just emotional and overwhelmed at how incredible she was to have done that. But I also felt guilty that Amy had to go through that and was trying to cope with thinking about what she’d gone through seeing me like that and having to do CPR on me.

‘I was so worried that she might have suffered trauma because of it all but she is fantastic and just gets on with everything.’

The couple found the following months difficult as they came to terms with what had happened to Lee – including a scare in October where he started getting chest pains again and developed heart inflammation.

‘I was so anxious that it might happen again,’ Amy said. ‘I don’t think I slept soundly for a long time after and every time Lee stated snoring, I would worry the same thing was happening or wake up and check he was breathing.

‘The hardest thing for Lee to deal with afterwards was that there didn’t seem to be a reason as to why this had happened, and he was angry as he felt it was unfair it had happened to him. He was fit and healthy up until then.’

But after treatment and returning to the gym to improve his fitness, Lee has been doing well since February this year.

And the couple finally married on June 12 after their wedding was cancelled four times during the pandemic.

Amy and Lee met on a night out in Newcastle almost 10 years ago and followed each other on social media after hitting it off – but didn’t meet again for over a year while Amy was away at university and then worked abroad for a few months.

He soon asked her on a date after she returned, and ‘things just took off from there’. They got engaged in July 2019 while on holiday in Santorini, Italy watching the sun set.

The couple said their wedding was even more ‘special and poignant’ with the reminder that Lee may not have lived to see them marry.

Lee said: ‘When we got married, I was so glad to have finally got that ring on her finger – and our wedding day was extra emotional because I just kept thinking I might not have been here to marry the woman I love.

‘Tears were guaranteed all round when I gave my speech and thanked Amy for saving my life.

‘But how do you really find the words to thank someone or repay them for saving your life?

‘But I am determined to repay Amy by staying as fit and healthy as possible – so I can just be here for her.’

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