By Luke Voogt
Ian Muir would not be alive today without the efforts of gym owner and paramedic Daniel Tinitali.
The 68-year-old Breakwater grandfather was completing a warm-down walk after a run when he collapsed from a sudden cardiac arrest in late November 2019.
“That’s all I remember,” he said.
“I woke up in hospital with wires all over me and I wasn’t happy!”
Ian was walking outside Breakwater Athletics, a gym co-owned by his son Cam, and Daniel, who performed vital CPR to help save his life.
“He came and visited me in hospital I said, ‘thanks for breaking my rib you bastard’ – he’s a big fella,” Ian said.
“I would not be alive today without him.”
Daniel, a full-time firefighter and a casual paramedic from Breakwater, was running when he saw Ian stumble and collapse.
Ian had no pulse and Daniel performed compressions, with help from a local off-duty paramedic alerted by Ambulance Victoria’s GoodSAM app, until an ambulance arrived minutes later.
“Ian was pretty damn lucky to have a paramedic two metres away to start that CPR,” Daniel said.
“But even though I’ve got the paramedic background, it was just basic first aid that I utilised.
“It’s very difficult to ignore your own heartrate, which is skyrocketing [and focus on CPR technique] because it’s such a tense and scary situation that you’re in.”
On-duty paramedics took over and performed CPR for an incredible 45 minutes, and with things looking bad Daniel phoned Ian’s wife and son to “prepare them for the worst”.
“It was right at the end when Ian decided he wanted to come back,” Daniel said.
While Daniel was very relieved Ian’s circulation had spontaneously returned, he remained “cautiously optimistic” about his still unconscious friend.
He realised from several years as a paramedic that Ian “still may never wake up” or could suffer brain injuries from a lack of oxygen during his lengthy resuscitation.
But he recovered thanks to the emergency department and other staff at Geelong hospital.
This Wednesday Breakwater Athletics received a free defibrillator from St John Ambulance Victoria for the upcoming anniversary of Daniel’s life-saving efforts.
Each year about 30,000 out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrests occur across Australia, with a survival rate of just 10 per cent.
For every minute that passes without CPR and defibrillation, the chance of survival for a casualty decreases by 7 to 10 percent.
