A biker has paid tribute to the doctor who saved his life after he met a horrific crash.
John O’Brien, 47, was on his motorcycle when he got involved in an accident in Delamere, Cheshire. The man had to be rushed to the hospital for receiving emergency treatment.
While John was being put into the air ambulance, he went into cardiac arrest.
The medical team led by Dr. Mark Forrest tried to restart his heart by decompressing it and pumping fluid into his blood, but nothing worked at the moment.
It was when the quick-thinking doctor decided to operate John at the scene.
Dr. Forrest started performing open heart massage by cutting open the biker’s chest, as his team helped him stop the internal bleeding caused by the accident.
Thanks to the procedure performed by the doctor, John’s heart started pumping again. He was then taken to Aintree Hospital where he was operated on again.
The incident happened in October 2018 and John has fully recovered now. Earlier this month, he even walked his daughter Amy down the aisle at her big day.
John wanted to thank Dr. Forrest and everyone else involved in his rescue, so he arranged a little ceremony by collaborating with Northwich Fire Station.
At the event, Cheshire Chief Fire Officer Mark Cashin honored Dr. Forrest by a special commendation for saving John’s life.
“I can’t thank Dr. Forrest and everyone involved enough for helping me that day and for doing everything they could to save my life,” John said at the event.
“I was lucky enough to be able to walk my daughter down the aisle recently and that’s all thanks to them.”
Dr. Forrest recalled the accident: “I arrived at the scene and was managing another casualty, when I noticed that the team where trying to resuscitate John, who had gone into cardiac arrest.
“Despite the huge effort by the doctors, paramedics, firefighters and police officers, nothing was working and it wasn’t looking good for him.
“I joined them at John’s side and, after a very quick discussion, we knew that the only chance of saving this man was to open up his chest to manage his internal injuries and to massage his heart until it started beating. This is rarely successful, but we did want to at least try.
“John has undoubtedly played a big part in his own recuperation since then. He has obviously worked really hard to get to the level of fitness he is right now. It will have been a tough road to recovery so his determination is commendable.”