Lucinda Dodd was 24, living in London and, by her own account, doing everything right. Then, on the morning of Christmas Eve, she had a cardiac arrest in her sleep.
Her mum, a nurse with decades of experience, found her, pulled her onto the floor and gave CPR for fifteen minutes with no response at all. Her 21-year-old brother called 999. Her dad froze. The paramedics shocked her eight times, and on the ninth her heart restarted. They worked on her in the house for over an hour. She woke up on Christmas Day.
Most guests on this podcast had a settled life to get back to. Lucinda did not have one yet. In this conversation, she talks about what a cardiac arrest does to a life that has barely started, and about the version of survivorship that nobody has written a leaflet for.
We cover:
Lucinda writes at Lucinda's Letters: https://lucindajohannaelizabeth.substack.com Her blog for SCA UK on the Canada trip: https://scauk.org/rUIh
Content note: this episode includes a detailed account of a cardiac arrest and resuscitation, and touches on bereavement and on some very low moments during recovery.
Were you young when it happened to you? We are working out what a space for younger survivors inside SCA UK should look like, and Lucinda is helping us think it through. If you had your cardiac arrest in your twenties or thirties, we would like to hear what you make of it. Email info@scauk.org with \"young survivors\" in the subject line.
","author_name":"Paul Swindell"}