Emotional scenes as cardiac arrest survivor Garry Kingston reunites with life saving St John WA paramedics

It was an emotional reunion when cardiac arrest survivor Garry Kingston wrapped his arms around the first responders who brought him back to life — thanking them from the bottom of his healthy, beating heart. The 67-year-old Manjimup farmer proudly displayed the long open-heart surgery scar down his chest this week as St John WA paramedics hailed him their “miracle man.” Mr Kingston is one of the lucky ones — part of the one in ten Western Australians who survive a cardiac arrest outside of hospital. His story of survival began in one of the most unlikely places: Parliament House. The husband of former South West MLC Louise Kingston, Garry had travelled to Perth to watch his wife give a speech when his heart suddenly stopped. “I had no signs,” Mr Kingston said. “My daughter drove me to Perth that morning, I got out of the car, walked into Parliament House through security, into Louise’s office, sat down, said hello to the wife, she was playing on the computer doing her speech, I sat down in the chair and that’s all I remember. “I was gone... I don’t remember anything from that point.” At first, Ms Kingston thought her husband was “just being stupid.” “I was sitting at my desk, and my daughter... said there is something wrong with Dad,” Ms Kingston recalled. “I turned around, and I looked at him, and I said, no, he’s just being stupid. “Then she goes, ‘no Mum, something is really wrong,’ “I turned around, and his eyes had rolled back in his head, and he’d gone bright red, and his head flew back, and then he was making a funny like choking noise. “I thought I’d lost him. I honestly thought he’d gone. I just raced out of the office screaming, ‘help, help, help.’” Luckily, help was just down the hall. Inside Parliament House, nurse Yvonne Fletcher was administering flu vaccinations, she and several security guards rushed to the scene, performing CPR and applying an automated external defibrillator. Those quick actions — and the fast arrival of St John WA paramedics Jenn Clarke, Yasemin Miller, and Brittany Naylor — gave Mr Kingston a fighting chance. “It’s remarkable,” the paramedics said. “I mean he looks really well... we had to do a lot of damage to fix what was going wrong. I think all the stars aligned that day.” In their close to ten years of service, the three paramedics said Mr Kingston was the first cardiac arrest patient they’d had the chance to meet again. And for Mr Kingston — whose own father once served as a St John paramedic — the meeting was deeply emotional. “All I can say is, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for the effort you put in, and I know it was a big effort,” he said. “My daughter’s got her wedding coming up and she thought I wasn’t going to walk her down the aisle — but I get to do that. That’s invaluable.” St John WA’s 2024 Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Report, released this week, paints a stark picture of just how rare survival can be. Last year, 1,240 patients were treated for cardiac arrest — 1,193 adults and 47 children. Almost 68 per cent of those were male. 81 per cent of patients received CPR from bystanders — but only 9 per cent survived. The biggest lifesaver was community defibrillators. Of the 66 patients who received a shock from a community AED before an ambulance arrived, 47 per cent survived — compared to just 15 per cent when the first shock came from paramedics.