Sunderland captain Luke O'Nien meets cardiac arrest survivor Lee Stephenson

Sunderland Echo

Sunderland and Leeds players will warm up in specially designed Every Minute Matters t-shirts to help raise awareness of the importance of CPR ahead of Friday's Stadium of Light clash.

Transcript

00:00So Lee Stevenson has a very personal reason for backing this campaign. Talk us through

00:05what happened to you, Lee.

00:06Yeah, so it was a night that most people will remember for different reasons. It was March

00:132020, the night that the Prime Minister announced a national lockdown. I was having a takeaway

00:21with my wife, then fiancée at home, and I started to experience chest pains. Due to

00:30everything that was happening, I thought it was sort of anxiety or panic attacks, and

00:36with the underlying message that we weren't to overwhelm the NHS that night, I didn't

00:44really want to bother anybody, so I took myself to bed for an early night, hoping I'd feel

00:48better in the morning. From there, that's the last thing I remember, I turned the light

00:54off and that was it. 10, 15 minutes later, Amy came to bed and found that there was a

01:03really strange noise coming from me. She turned the light on, and my face was just completely

01:10blank and turning blue. She called 999, and the call hand at Bradley was excellent. He

01:18talked her through everything that she needed to do so she wasn't alone. She pulled me off

01:23the bed, started chest compressions, and performing CPR until the paramedics arrived, who then

01:30arrived about 10, 12 minutes later. They then took over and used a defib, which then restarted

01:40my heart. It took about 7 shocks for me to come back around. From there, I went on to

01:49the Freeman Hospital, spent 5 days in intensive care in the coronary care unit, and was eventually

01:57fitted with a stent, which opened up the blood flow back to my heart.

02:09Q. I understand Amy had been on a course training CPR?

02:12A. Yes, Amy had been on a first aid course a few years prior, but in all honesty, she didn't take it very seriously.

02:20You do tend to take those courses as a bit of a jolly break from the office, but thankfully,

02:30something remained in her memory from that course. She knew what she was doing, but again,

02:38the call handler was excellent that night. They told her to shout push on each compression, so they

02:45knew whether she was going too fast or too slow. They were fantastic that night as well.

02:55Q. How important is it for you that the club is backing this campaign?

02:59A. Massively. I've just been talking to Lee about his story. I got emotional just hearing it, but he

03:07explains an incredible story, just how important every minute counts. To be able to be a part of a message

03:16and that story, and trying to increase awareness is massively important. Family is one of the most

03:23important things in my life, and to have the opportunity to help with this campaign and spread

03:28awareness is very important to me.

03:30Q. I think this is quite an important part of your role here at the club, isn't it, this kind of public

03:34relations thing and leading on various things such as this?

03:37A. Yes, I think football is an incredible game and it brings many, many people together, but when there's

03:43an underlying message, and football, you've seen it in the past, and how it has thousands of people

03:52come in and you can increase awareness and spread a message through this wonderful game. I know how

03:58important it is to the club to be a part of this. We've had a former player here, Charlie Waiku, who's

04:05been through this as well. I think everybody's connected to someone, whether that's directly or indirectly,

04:13he's been involved with heart attacks and having to do CPR. So to increase awareness, to learn and educate

04:23yourself can only be important in this world. You might come across it and you might need it one day,

04:28and to have that education is huge.

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