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Victorian Paramedic Diagnoses Himself With A Heart Attack & Saves His Life

David Watson is recovering after suffering a massive heart attack.
A paramedic managed to treat himself as he was having a massive heart attack, driving himself to the nearest hospital for life saving treatment.
Fairfax Media
A paramedic managed to treat himself as he was having a massive heart attack, driving himself to the nearest hospital for life saving treatment.

Fifty-two year old David Watson was working on his own near Torquay in western Victoria, when he started having chest pains and a 'tingly' feeling up his arms.

He knew, almost immediately that he was having a heart attack. Watson told 3AW Breakfast he knew things were not right.

"I just got the sudden onset of crushing chest pain and tingles down both arms, so I quickly rushed in, grabbed the heart monitor from the ambulance, put myself on it and thought, uh oh, that's not right," Watson said.

Watson drove himself to the nearest hospital, only a short drive away but still with crushing chest pain.

"They gave me heparin to break the clot and pain relief drugs. When they gave me the Thrombolysis drug about an hour later, the chest pain left. So, obviously, that clot-busting drug worked, which was fantastic," Watson told 3AW.

He was flown by helicopter to Geelong Hospital where he was operated on, following a major heart attack.

"They removed the clot and put in a stent. I went to the doctor yesterday, and he said I'm lucky to be alive because I was so quick to get on to it, because I was able to self diagnose", Watson said.

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