Gympie dad Luke Ellis speaks on surviving 28 minutes with no heartbeat

For nearly half an hour, seemingly healthy Qld dad Luke Ellis had no heartbeat. Now, he’s telling the extraordinary tale of how his wife, 12-year-old daughter and paramedics saved his life.

It was supposed to be a quiet, fun Saturday night for the Ellis family – a movie at their Southside, Gympie home, snacks, and time together.

But for Luke, Jasmine, and their children Bella and Archie, it became an extraordinary fight to save a seemingly healthy concreter and surfer dad’s life.

Jasmine Ellis said about 9pm on Saturday June 7, only two days after Mr Ellis’s 47th birthday, she looked across to see her husband, who had been scrolling through his phone only minutes earlier while watching the film Maleficent, now asleep on the lounge.

“He had some chocolate left on his plate, so I reached across, and grabbed it,” Ms Ellis said.

It was this point his eyes shot open, and his body went rigid.

Luke and Jasmine Ellis, and their children Bella and Archie, have spoken about the shocking events which unfolded when Luke suffered a heart attack while at home, which he only survived by a 'miracle'.

“It was like he was having a fit,” she said.

“There was just no response.

“I thought he may have been choking so I did a couple of back thrusts, and I realised pretty quick there was no breathing.”

She pulled Luke off the couch and started CPR while Bella called triple-0.

“I told the kids to go outside and wait for ambulance, just so they were distracted and had something to do and were not looking at me working on dad,” she said.

It was only six minutes before paramedics arrived at their home, 7km south of the city.

But this was still only the start of an enormous fight to save Luke’s life.

She said it took seven defibrillator shocks “and 28 minutes of flatline” before “they finally got a heartbeat”.

The paramedics then stabilised him in the loungeroom before rushing him to Gympie Hospital’s emergency department in a critical condition.

Luke Ellis said the heart attack came as a complete shock, as he spend his career as a concreter and had surfed his whole life.

The plan was to then fly him to the Sunshine Coast University Hospital, but this was scuttled by the weather.

“It was that foggy that night the chopper couldn’t land,” Ms Ellis said.

“They had to fly back and then send that crew up in the ambulance.”

Luke spent three nights in SCUH’s intensive care ward before being transferred across to the critical care unit.

He said there were no warning signs of any kind leading up to the heart attack.

“He was great spirits, nothing out of the ordinary, he wasn’t unwell,” Ms Ellis said.

“I don’t remember anything of the actual day,” Mr Ellis said, despite having mowed the lawn and had a visit from his parents.

There was no recollection of a near-death-experience from the moments he was flatlining.

“Nothing at all,” he said.

“It’s really blurry, the last few days before is blurry, I don’t really remember much.
“I remember waking up in ICU … feeling all the tubes and s**t hanging out of my mouth.

“As soon as I opened my eyes Jasi was saying ‘you’ve had a heart attack, it’s all right, calm down, it’s OK’.

“It was just like a bad dream.”

The Ellis family was grateful for the efforts of first responders and medical staff in the immediate aftermath, saying without their work Luke would not have survived.

Ms Ellis said because of the prolonged flatline his short-term memory was “compromised” but it was “slowly getting better”.

He was fortunately expected to make a full recovery outside his memory of the attack and the days around it.

The heart attack came as a complete shock for the active concreter who had surfed his whole life.

“I’ve never had any dramas with (my heart),” he said.

Ms Ellis was grateful to the efforts of first responders and medical staff in the immediate aftermath.

“What they did in our loungeroom that night, was above and beyond.”

“A lot of people are quick to judge Gympie Hospital, but they saved Luke’s life.”

“We can’t thank them enough.”

Ms Ellis said she had only taken a refresher course on CPR a month before the incident.

“I’m very thankful that I was able to take control of the situation rather than let and shock and fright kick in,” she said.

“I looked at my children’s faces and knew if I wasn’t going to do anything they wouldn’t have their father around.”

“I looked at my childrens’ faces and knew if I wasn’t going to do anything they wouldn’t have their father around,” Jasmine Ellis said of her quick thinking to start CPR on Luke.

Mr Ellis said “Jasi saved my life first and they … took the ball on and run with it after that”.

He stayed in hospital for two weeks, and one week after his release doctors discovered the cause of the heart attack: An enlarged heart muscle, or Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy.

It is a genetic condition in which the left ventricle of the heart becomes abnormally thickened, obstructing blood flow from the heart and making it harder for the heart to continue pumping effectively.

“It was a ticking time bomb,” Ms Ellis said.

“Luke’s father passed away when (Luke) was three years old, he had a massive heart attack.

This was back in the early 1980s and was put down to myocarditis.

It had now drawn attention to the possibility of the condition afflicting other people in Mr Ellis’s family, with check-up tests now planned.

“If you look at it in a bit of a humour light … Luke has taken one for the team,” she said.

“He’s a walking miracle.

“He’s so lucky to be alive.”