Father clinically dead after heart attack behind wheel
Darren Riley, a father of two, suffered a heart attack while driving on the Gold Coast Highway at Tallebudgera on Tuesday. His car crashed into a parked vehicle and became wedged down an embankment. Smoke poured from the vehicle as bystanders rushed to help.
Lachie Davies, driving past, saw the car going haywire, did a u-turn, and pulled over. When he reached the crash site, two construction workers had already smashed a window of the locked car and were pulling Riley from the wreck. “Darren was blue and just lifeless, like no life in his body,” Davies said.
Strangers perform CPR and use defibrillator
While others began CPR, Davies sprinted about 100 metres to a nearby tourist park to grab an automated external defibrillator (AED), despite never having used one before. “I’ve honestly watched so much Bondi Rescue. They always just say, ‘Defib, defib,’” he said. He grabbed the AED and returned to the scene, applying patches and shocking Riley four times. After 12 minutes of CPR, paramedics arrived and administered two more shocks.
“At around the 16 minute mark and after two more shocks and four more minutes of CPR they stopped CPR as he was breathing (assisted) on his own and had a steady heart rate,” Davies recalled.
About 10 strangers involved in rescue
Davies said about 10 strangers played a role in saving Riley’s life. “I think the biggest thing is we brought him back to life, but it wasn’t just one person. There were 10 people involved in helping bring Darren back to life and they all played their crucial part.” The group included two construction workers, two Titans NRLW players, a nurse, and several other bystanders who took turns performing CPR.
Doctors later inserted a stent to unblock one of Riley’s arteries. “They said I was shocked six times. I said, ‘Is that bad?’ He said, ‘Yeah, they don’t normally come back from six.’ I’m a very very lucky man... very lucky man,” Riley said.
Riley meets rescuers in hospital
Riley has no memory of the rescue and only woke in an ambulance. “I feel like I just tried to go to footy and someone’s smashed my chest,” he said. On Thursday, he met Davies and several other strangers in hospital. “Thanks for saving my life, mate,” he told Davies. “The community needs people like this, you know, that will get in there and help them when someone’s in crisis. Like these guys I’ve never met before in my life. Never. Remarkable. Absolutely remarkable.”
GoFundMe launched to help father
Davies learned that Riley had been going through a rough stage and did not have insurance on his crashed car. He launched a GoFundMe to help Riley get back on his feet. Riley has pledged to use any excess money to purchase more defibrillators for the Gold Coast. “Any excess money that I don’t need to put my car on the road, I’ll be putting defibs in somewhere down the Gold Coast. They’ve given me back my life and my kids their father,” he said.
