My friends were watching me die: How an Auckland futsal player survived cardiac arrest

My friends were watching me die: How an Auckland futsal player survived cardiac arrest
It feels strange to watch yourself dying.

Josh Margetts doesn't remember the day he collapsed on a futsal court when his heart stopped working, but he’s seen the video plenty of times.

It is, the 29-year-old Auckland man says, like “watching a dream”.

“I know it is me because I can see it, but I have no connection to the event itself. No memories of stress, anxiety or pain.”

His knowledge of what happened that day has been pieced together from the video footage, and accounts from those were there.

“It was so hard seeing the impact it had on some of my closest mates and teammates,” he says. “They were pretty much watching their friend die in front of them.”

He realises how lucky he is to be alive.

“You start to think about your own mortality, how close it was to being a really bad situation.”

Margetts was halfway through futsal training with Auckland Football in October 2017 when he suffered a cardiac arrest, and collapsed. As he lay face down on the court at Barfoot and Thompson Stadium in Kohimarama, coach Alejo Perez Leguizamon and friend and teammate Kareem Osman sprung into action.

Osman, a doctor, and Leguizamon, trained in first aid, acted swiftly to offer Margetts the best chance of survival.

They provided CPR for 23 minutes and Margetts was shocked seven times with an AED (Automatic external defibrillator).

As the minutes went by they began to fear the worst.

“It seemed like we had been going forever, and I knew his chance of survival was getting worse with every cycle,” Osman says.

“We both got really emotional hearing it back, I was crying, and he was pretty upset as well and at the end of it he told me, ‘this is actually the fifth or sixth time I've told you this week, and it has been the exact same reaction every time’.”

Doctors have been unable to explain the sudden cardiac arrest in such a young person. There was no heart disease, or structural problems, or family history.

Margetts was in hospital for two weeks, but it took six months for him to regain brain function, and he also had to learn to walk again.

He now lives with an ICD (internal cardiac defibrillator) in his chest that will shock his heart if it stops again, which he describes as an “insurance policy”.

Margetts returned to futsal training eight months later and was again selected for the national team within a year and a half.

“I wanted to show that I was still good enough and this hadn't effected me and I wanted to be able to contribute to the national team.”

Margetts is far from alone in suffering a cardiac arrest.

More than 1000 Kiwis collapse with cardiac arrest each year while not in hospital; many have no prior symptoms, and get no warning.

Less than 5-8% will survive if they don't receive immediate treatment, however the use of an AED can increase the chance of survival after cardiac arrest by up to 40%.

In Margetts’ case, he was fortunate that an AED was onsite thanks to New Zealand Football’s AED Smart Start campaign, which has seen 280 AEDs donated to football clubs across the country since 2016.

ACC helps with funding for the programme, and renewed its investment in January.

James Whitaker, ACC injury prevention leader, says ACC is proud to support the initiative because prevention and player safety is paramount.

Margetts is encouraging all football clubs to have an AED plan in place for the coming winter season.