A Queensland paramedic has been surprised with the “highest honour” after learning a woman had named her child after the man she watched save her grandmother’s life more than a decade ago.
Tia was just 16 years old when she saw her grandmother, Margaret, collapse at her Mudgeeraba home on the Gold Coast in 2014. Tia called triple-0 and paramedics soon began treating Margaret, who had gone into cardiac arrest.
One of those paramedics was Hugo Evison. Margaret, who was 70 at the time, beat the odds to survive her medical emergency and subsequent surgeries — which Evison was happy to learn when he visited her in hospital.
He thought that was the happy ending to that particular story, until several weeks ago when he received an email at work.
“It was a very generic email saying, ‘Do you remember this job 12 years ago?’,” Evison told 7NEWS.com.au. “I’m like, ‘Absolutely not. I need some more info please’.”
Queensland Ambulance Service provided a case number and report from the call out. “After that, I remembered it straight away because it was a very challenging case to manage,” Evison said.
Evison said he remembered arriving at Margaret’s house and realising straight away she was critically unwell. “She had a cardiac arrest and then she had what we call CPR-induced consciousness, which is something we don’t see a lot of,” he said.
CPR-induced consciousness is a rare event where there is enough blood flow to the brain from CPR that a person may show signs of awareness or wakefulness even though their heart has stopped beating.
“(Margaret) was actively pushing me off and, you know, fighting me, even though she was still in arrest,” Evison said. “Her case was definitely the most intense CPR-induced consciousness I’ve ever seen.”
Evison said Tia stuck by her grandmother, riding with her in the ambulance to the hospital. “That’s a terribly traumatic experience for a 16-year-old, to watch your grandmother go into cardiac arrest,” he said.
“In this job, you know, nothing really good ever happens in the back of an ambulance. We’re associated with a lot of terrible trauma, we’re sharing a moment with someone ... and it’s often the worst moment of their life.”
After Margaret’s brush with death, Evison said he checked on her in hospital a few weeks later to see how she was going. “She was awake, talking to me and I was like, ‘This is great, this is fantastic’,” he said. “And that’s, you know, where it kind of got left.”
That is until 12 years later when Evison learned Tia had never forgotten about her grandmother’s saviour, and had named her baby boy after him.
“It’s an amazing honour, that’s for certain, I mean, what an honour to have a child named after you,” Evison said. “It was very special.”
On Monday, Evison reunited with Margaret and Tia and was introduced to baby Hugo at Southport Ambulance Station.
“To see Margaret and her family, and then to listen to Tia talk about the moments they’ve been able to share together, you know, because she survived that event — it’s pretty moving,” he said. “And then to have a child end up here is actually really wild.
“I’ve been doing the job for 21 years and it’s easy to sometimes lose a bit of perspective. And then to have that brought home, the massive impact you had on someone’s life. To have such a great outcome, and story like this, is fantastic.
“I’m very glad they reached out to share that moment with me. It’s a real honour, I felt very special to be part of their family.”
Evison said after their reunion was shared on Facebook, another former patient reached out — four years after their own medical emergency.
“She reached out and said, ‘You saved my life four years ago and I saw this story, thank you, I was thinking about you all this time’,” Evison said. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s crazy!’ — it’s very rewarding.
“That makes the difficult part of the job a little bit easier, I guess, when you have moments like this.”
