From the moment he woke up, Dave Rees felt dreadful. Every time he stood up his world spun.

'I felt I'd gone six rounds with Mohammad Ali,” says Dave.

Ironically, Dave's wife was returning home from the hospital that day, and Dave called his daughter to ask her to pick his wife up, before calling for an ambulance for himself – he knew he was in trouble.

The attending medics knew there was no time to waste, and the ambulance headed straight for the TECT Rescue Helicopter helipad where the waiting crew flew Dave directly to Waikato Hospital.

Dave doesn't remember much from the time he was loaded into the helicopter.

'My last memory is hearing a voice say ‘arrested' and the thought went through my head… what the heck are they arresting me for?” he laughs at the memory.

'They're supposed to be taking me to hospital!”

The onboard Intensive Care Paramedic (ICP) Dave filled in the gaps.

'When Dave was handed over to us, he was extremely unstable. On attempting to load him into the aircraft he cardiac arrested, was defibrillated, and underwent a short round of CPR. He then regained consciousness but re-arrested twice more whilst we were making further attempts to load him in.”

Dave's heart stopped three times, but ICP Dave never gave up on him. On arrival at Waikato Hospital, Dave was transferred to the waiting team of cardiologists.

'Doctors said that the work the medics in the TECT Rescue Helicopter had done on me was a brilliant job. A blood clot had caused my heart attack and they dissolved the clot. The doctors couldn't believe there was absolutely no damage to my heart, and they told me I was one extremely lucky man,” says Dave.

-Philips Rescue Helicopter Trust.