A pregnant woman helped save her husband’s life after his heart suddenly stopped in the middle of the night, performing CPR for around 15 minutes while she was 39 weeks pregnant. Days later, their newborn daughter met her father while he was still in a coma, in an emotional moment the family described as “the craziest experience” of their lives.
Sam King’s heart stopped after a normal evening
Sam and Emma King had been preparing to welcome their first child when their lives changed dramatically in April. The couple had spent what seemed like an ordinary evening celebrating Emma’s final day at work before maternity leave.Speaking about the incident on This Morning, Sam said he had felt completely fine that day. He had even run to and from the pub because he was training for a half marathon before returning home to make dinner.“It was just a completely normal evening,” Sam recalled.The couple went to bed as usual. Emma later woke around 3 a.m. and stayed on her phone before briefly chatting with Sam at around 4 a.m. About 10 minutes later, she noticed something was seriously wrong.“He’s, like, gasping for breath, like three huge gasps, and then his eyes go to the back of his head,” Emma recalled.
Emma performed CPR while 39 weeks pregnant
Emma immediately called 999. The emergency call handler instructed her to begin CPR.At the time, Emma was 39 weeks pregnant with their daughter, Sophie.“I wasn’t sure whether to — I didn’t know I had to do CPR. Basically, it was the call handler that told me to start giving him CPR,” she said.Emma performed CPR for around 15 minutes before the ambulance arrived.Emergency responders then continued working on Sam at the couple’s home for approximately two hours.“My heart stopped for two hours,” Sam said.Doctors were able to see some movement in his heart during an ultrasound, despite the fact that it was not producing a pulse or blood pressure.“They managed an ultrasound and it’s one of the things that meant they kept going because they could see it was fluttering,” Sam explained.“So it wasn’t producing a pulse or any kind of blood pressure but it was still there was something going on.”
Emma stayed calm for the sake of her unborn baby
While Sam was being treated, Emma had to cope with the terrifying situation while heavily pregnant.She said her primary concern was ensuring that her unborn daughter was safe.“I think because I was so pregnant I just had to stay calm because I didn’t want anything to obviously happen to Sophie,” Emma said.Her focus was on informing both families and keeping herself calm.“And then as soon as I felt her move that morning for the first time, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m okay now. I just need to stay calm.’”Sam was eventually taken to hospital and placed in a coma. His condition was so serious that the family was told he was among the sickest patients being treated.He was initially taken to Southampton General Hospital before being transferred to London, where Emma said they were told he was “probably the third or fourth sickest person in the country.”
Emma went into labour while Sam was in a coma
Just three days after Sam’s cardiac arrest, Emma went into labour.She was staying in a hotel room at around 4 a.m. when labour began. Four hours later, she gave birth to their daughter, Sophie, at the same hospital where Sam was being treated.“I gave birth in the same hospital. We all had, like, matching wristbands, which we thought was cute,” Emma said.At the time, doctors were gradually reducing Sam’s sedation to see how he responded. However, the family still did not know whether he had any cognitive awareness.
Newborn Sophie meets her father
Around four hours after Sophie was born, the midwife brought her to meet Sam.He was still unresponsive, although his eyes were open.Emma recalled the extraordinary moment when the midwife held their newborn daughter in front of Sam.“The midwife literally just lifted her in front of his eyes because he had his eyes open and you could see tears coming down the side of his eyes,” she said.“It was the craziest experience of my life.”Sam has only a hazy recollection of the encounter.“These videos, it’s kind of — it’s all very foggy, on a lot of drugs there,” he said. “But it’s kind of like almost like a dream. Like you kind of half remember it.”
Sam returns to sports after cardiac arrest
Sam has since made a remarkable recovery and described himself as “normal”. He left hospital with broken ribs caused by the CPR and was prescribed paracetamol for the pain.He has also been fitted with a defibrillator in case another cardiac emergency occurs.“I’ve got a defibrillator. Should anything happen again, hopefully not,” he said.Sam has since returned to physical activity and is back to playing pickleball and other sports.
Doctors conduct tests to find out why Sam’s heart stopped
Doctors are continuing to investigate what caused Sam’s heart to suddenly stop.He is currently wearing a heart monitor for a week and is expected to undergo exercise tests and genetic testing.Sam said finding the cause is particularly important because the results could help doctors assess other members of his family, including his daughter Sophie.“Because they can then, if they work out of me, they can then test Sophie for that, my mum for that, my sister for that, my dad for that, things like that,” he explained.
Sam urges people to learn CPR
The couple decided to share their experience to encourage others to learn basic CPR skills.Sam urged people not to hesitate if they find themselves in a situation where someone may need emergency assistance.“So, there’s the main takeaways that we want to tell everyone from this is to give CPR to someone if they — if you’re unsure whether someone needs CPR or not, just give it to them,” he said.He also pointed out that people do not necessarily need extensive training to learn the basics.“You don’t need any crazy training. The British Heart Foundation has a 15-minute course that you can just use your pillow.”Sam acknowledged that Emma’s prior CPR training may have helped her remain composed during the emergency.“You’ll never know if that made the difference,” he said. “But in the back of her mind, the fact that, you know, when they said, ‘You need to start doing CPR,’ the fact that she knew where to place her hands, the rhythm, things like that, maybe it just helped a bit, took away a bit of the nerves.”“She definitely saved my life,” Sam added.
