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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
National
Sophie Halle-Richards

'My holiday indigestion turned out to be a heart attack... now I wake up every day in fear'

It's been over three years since Tina Murphy suffered a catastrophic heart attack whilst on holiday in Marrakesh - but she still wakes up every day in fear.

The mum and grandmother, from Burnage, had been away with her partner John when she started getting chest and arm pains. At first, she dismissed it as indigestion.

But as the day went on, Tina realised the pain wasn't going away. Concerned it was something more serious, John asked for help at the hotel reception, and a doctor was sent.

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Under his instruction, she was rushed to hospital immediately, where she remained for a week for treatment, which included an operation and having stents fitted.

And the language barrier with Moroccan doctors meant they even had to rely on Google Translate on their phones to try and explain what was going on.

Tina, now 58, has fully recovered from the heart attack. But the trauma of her ordeal has had a lasting effect, and she still fears that it could happen to her again.

Tina and her partner John (Tina Murphy)

"I have had a fear over the last few years thinking, 'could today be the day when I won't be as lucky,'" she said. "It has been very difficult to deal with."

Tina and John had been having breakfast at their hotel in the Moroccan city in December 2019 when she started noticing the pains.

"It just felt like bad indigestion. I had an ache in the arm," she said. "I had some Gaviscon and mint tea, thinking I was blocked up or it was heartburn.

"The pain then stopped for an hour or so and we had a game of shuffleboard. But it kept coming back and it would come back more intense.

"It wasn't until the late afternoon that the pain got worse, it was getting tighter and then the chest pain was getting worse. Around 4:30pm I could feel a sensation going up my neck.

"But I couldn't relate any of this to a specific symptom of something and kept wondering why I was getting it." Tina went to their room for a lie down while John went to the reception to ask someone to check on his wife.

Tina Murphy (Tina Murphy)

A doctor then came out, gave Tina a check-up - and phoned for an ambulance to take them to the hospital. She said: "I turned to John and said, 'I am going to feel like a right fraud'.

"But he told me it doesn't matter if there is nothing wrong with me, I just need to be looked at. When we got to the hospital they did an ECG, a heart scan and took bloods.

"But nothing came up either on the ECG or the heart scan. They put me in a side ward and said they would come and check on me in 30 minutes."

But, while they were waiting, Tina's pain then came back - more severely - and she started sweating. John rushed for medical help and his partner was taken into an assessment room.

"I still had no clue what was going on," Tina said. "They wheeled me out of the room and told my partner I was very poorly and he couldn't come into the room.

"When we got in, I started to hear them all talking and they started talking about stents. At that point, I knew I was having a heart attack."

Bruises on Tina's wrists from where cannulas had to be fitted (Tina Murphy)

Tina's main artery was closed, so she had an angioplasty procedure. This uses a balloon to stretch open a narrowed or blocked artery - and had three stents fitted. She remained in the hospital for a week before being discharged.

Last year, she opened up to the M.E.N for the first time about the terrifying experience to coincide with a new NHS campaign aimed to tackle heart disease myths.

Looking back on her ordeal, she previously said: "I never ever thought that all those symptoms were a heart attack.

"Even now I can't quite believe it. I saw the NHS are raising more awareness about people not knowing the signs and think it is so important.

"It is even more scary when you are abroad and have no idea what is going on and can't communicate properly, but I am still so thankful for the doctors who saved my life."

Read more of today's top stories here.

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