This was published 1 year ago
‘I thought he was snoring’: Then Maja realised Tom was in cardiac arrest
By Tim Elliott
In 2018, Maja Webster helped perform CPR on her husband Tom for 40 minutes, who was in cardiac arrest, while waiting for an ambulance after hiking in the UK. The married couple of 43 years recently returned to complete the walk.
Tom and Maja Webster: “Life can change in a second, so don’t put it off.”Credit: Natalie Boog
Maja: I met Tom in 1978 at a party in Newport, on Sydney’s northern beaches. He says it was love at first sight for him, but I didn’t really notice him. He was the local Labor candidate for the seat of Wakehurst at that year’s NSW election and, over the next few months, he invited me to all these functions. I never twigged that he was chasing me, but he grew on me. After a while, I thought, “Oh yeah, he’s not too bad!” We got married in 1980.
What I admired about Tom is that he has the most integrity of anyone I’ve ever known. And he made me commit to things. I was a bit flighty: I’d start something – scuba diving, say – then lose interest. He made me see that you should stick to things. But the great thing about our relationship is that we’ve each done our own thing when we’ve needed to. I’ve travelled around China, Nepal, Patagonia. He didn’t want to go and I didn’t force him.
We’re big walkers. In May 2018, we were in England doing the Coast to Coast Walk. It’s 305 kilometres, straight across the country from Saint Bees in the west [on the Cumbrian Coast] to Robin Hood’s Bay in the east [in North Yorkshire]. It was going well until we were 45 kilometres from finishing, on the moors, when it started snowing hard. We found a hotel, checked in and, when we got to our room, Tom took a bath and we had a lie down. We were just lying there when Tom started making these strange noises. I thought he was snoring until I looked at him and saw he was grey. He was in cardiac arrest.
The adrenaline kicked in. Our friends, Greg and Wendy, were in the next room, so I went and got them. Wendy went to get help while Greg and I dragged Tom off the bed and started CPR. We took turns, but it was mostly him – he’s a former surf lifesaver – and I counted breaths and compressions. It was so foggy they couldn’t get a helicopter in, so we had to wait for an ambulance.
“I leant over Tom and told him he had to live, that he had to be a grandfather.”
After 20 minutes, Wendy came back with an anaesthetics nurse, who took over with Greg. Two barmen then came up and they all rotated. I leant over Tom and told him he had to live, that he had to be a grandfather.
After 45 minutes, the ambulance arrived. They got out their defibrillator, gave Tom an electric shock and he came to. He looked at the paramedics and said, “You’ve had to come so far in such bad weather!” Then he said, “Where’s Maja?” I said, “I’m here.” And he said, “I love you. Please don’t tell the kids.” He didn’t want them to worry. Six days later, at James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, he had a quadruple bypass.
Last September, we went back to finish the walk. When you leave Saint Bees, the tradition is that you wet your boots in the Irish Sea on the beach and pick up some stones. You then carry those stones and throw them into the sea on the other side while thinking positive thoughts. We thought about us and our kids [son Jakob, 39, and daughter Andie, 33] and remembered just how important they are to us.
It was very emotional. These days, I’m far more committed to doing the important stuff; the stuff we really want to do. Life can change in a second, so don’t put it off.
Tom: We met at a party in an old furniture warehouse. I walked in the front door and saw her dancing with some guy. She had on black jeans and a floral blouse and I was immediately taken with her. I was 27, so a part of it was lust, I guess. But there was something enchanting about her smile. She had no clue that I liked her.
Maja was hippy trippy, I was more conservative. She opened my eyes to lots of things. Food, for one. I’d been brought up with Kraft cheese, and she knew all these exotic varieties. And she got me into gardening and entertaining; she’s much more outgoing than me. I lost my seat of Wakehurst at the 1984 NSW election, and things were tight financially for a few years. Maja had to go back to nursing, working with the developmentally delayed; she kept the family afloat. She’s courageous, Maja. I tend to focus on all the things that can go wrong, whereas she’s always determined and resilient.
In May 2018, we were doing the Coast to Coast Walk in the UK when some terrible weather came in: the temperature dropped to five degrees and it started snowing. At about 3pm, we checked into the Lion Inn, where it was nice and warm. We had a cup of tea and I went up to the room. Maja came up a while later, got into bed and that’s the last thing I remember until I found Maja and Greg doing CPR on me. I remember them breaking my ribs – I heard the crack – and saying, “Please don’t hurt me!”
The paramedics arrived, put the defibrillator on me and I came to straight away. I looked out the window, saw the storm raging and apologised for bringing them out in such bad weather; I didn’t lose my manners. Everyone laughed because they thought I was a goner. I said, “I love you, Maja.”
“I remember them breaking my ribs – I heard the crack – and saying, ‘Please don’t hurt me!’”
After the surgery, I lost 20 kilograms and couldn’t walk 10 paces. Maja said to me, “I don’t want to be married to a cardiac cripple.” So I thought, “Bugger it, I’m not going to be like that.” She took me out walking a lot.
It was important to finish the walk in England, to close that chapter. We did it last year: it took us three days to walk the remaining 45 kilometres. We threw our pebbles into the North Sea – we had two of the original pebbles, but had to get four more because we’d had four grandchildren in the meantime.
The whole incident affected us deeply. In a day-to-day sense, if I’m out of Maja’s sight and I’m meant to be somewhere and I’m not, she’ll worry. The kids are the same. Once I made a point of walking the steepest, biggest hill I knew of in [Sydney’s] Collaroy. And I took a photo from the top and texted it to Maja, to prove to her that I’m okay, not to worry, that I’m still here and that I love her.
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