WA nurse saves his own life in heart attack emergency
A clinical nurse in WA's Coral Bay has staged an incredible remote rescue operation to save a life - his own.
Ryan Franks had finished his day at work in the local nursing post when he started having chest pains and collapsed.
"I went home and was just looking forward to the rest of the week, then the chest pain arrived and I went, 'this has got to be something different, it really can't be chest pain, I really can't be having a heart attack'."
The 44-year-old usually treats others at the remote medical post in Coral Bay, hundreds of kilometres from the closest hospital.
But last week this do-it-yourself lifesaver brought himself back from the brink - and his medical colleagues are now calling him the self serve nurse.
"Just pretty much everything went blank, eyes started going shaky, my legs went shaky, just collapsed to the ground, I went, 'I'm in trouble, I'm in trouble'."
Ryan managed to call his mates, the local St John Ambulance volunteers.
He then prepared his own adrenalin and shock pads, then for back up, dialled in to a doctor in Perth using the Emergency Telehealth Service.
He got Dr Bea Scichitano, who was on her first ever shift.
"I think it probably took me a few seconds to cotton on to the fact that he was the nurse and the patient at the same time so that was a bit of a shock," she said.
"The service is wonderful, it certainly saved my life," Ryan said.
"To be able to use the service as a patient and a nurse at the same time - that's pretty good."
