A Nottinghamshire 'ironman' drove for three hours to Oxford whilst suffering a prolonged heart attack which he had dismissed as breathing problems. Pete Robertson, a dad-of-two from Edwinstowe, near Mansfield said he felt he "wasn’t going to make it" at one point during the heart attack which lasted 10 hours.
It happened to the then 47-year-old in November 2019, at a time when he was "extremely fit" having jcompleted the Ironman 70.3 challenge a few weeks earlier, which consists of a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride and 13.1 mile run. “The doctor told me I was lucky to have made it out the back of the ambulance alive," he told Nottinghamshire Live.
Pete said he started getting chest pains in the middle of the night but "thought nothing of it" as his wife was ill with the flu at the time. He said he also heard a strange noise coming from his chest when he breathed. "I got into my car to go down to work in Oxford at about half five in the morning and I was struggling to breathe," the group engineering manager recalled.
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“I should've thought more of it. By the time I got to Oxford I realised I needed to go to a local chemist - then I was really struggling to breathe. I caught a glimpse of a local GPs almost by accident and asked for assistance. I didn’t think I was going to make it."
He was then rushed to John Radcliffe Hospital. "I had no idea what was going on, it was terrifying. I remember crying in the ambulance not fully sure if I was going to make it to the hospital to be honest." Pete underwent an emergency operation to get a stent fitted and was told by doctors that had been suffering from a heart attack, likely caused by stress, for about 10 hours.
“What saved me was my fitness, it’s why my heart was able to handle a heart attack for so long," he said, adding that doctors assured him it was in no way linked to the Ironman. "They positively encouraged me to get back to fitness."
Pete's wife, Lauren, said that as soon as she knew her husband had been taken to hospital she travelled down to Oxford. "I started really panicking," the 39-year-old recalled. "I was completely overwhelmed, I chucked a suitcase together and jumped in the car."
"It was completely unexpected, he's very lucky he was as fit as he was." Pete spent three days in hospital before receiving "fantastic" rehabilitation support at King's Mill Hospital. Since the "terrifying" ordeal, the now 49-year-old has recovered remarkably.
He completed his 11th Ironman 70.3 in October 2021 (he had run two full Ironmans prior to the heart attack) and is eyeing up the 2022 London Marathon, raising money for the British Heart Foundation. “You don’t realise you can be at risk of heart failure once you’ve had a heart attack," he said. "I want to take on marathon for the British Heart Foundation to raise funds to help heal hearts like mine.”
However, Pete said he still suffers from the after effects. “Sometimes I’ll be sitting at the bottom of the stairs before a run holding the banister, petrified. It’s still a battle on the running side." Anyone interested in running the TCS London Marathon 2022 for the British Heart Foundation can do so at bhf.org.uk/londonmarathon2022.
