On November 17 2021 I suffered a heart attack. At around 10:30pm the South Central Ambulance Service and their paramedics attended my house to check me out. Before they arrived my chest pains had subsided and they spent a few hours with me conducting various tests and all they could find was a very high blood pressure reading. They were obviously concerned with this and were trying to figure out the right approach to bring my blood pressure back down. This involved them taking advise from their HQ and providing the relevant readouts over the air. This was proving difficult as phone signal in my area was very weak which prevent them from being able to go through their triage process.

At this stage it seemed like I was going to be staying at home and no need for a hospital visit. As the paramedics were packing away all the technical, my chest pains returned and all the equipment was unpacked. Once the paramedics seen what was going on it was clear to them that I was having a heart attack. I clearly recall the chap that was working on me saying, with a wink, “looks like you are getting a ride with the blue lights tonight”.

I think this was more frightening for my wife than it was for me. The two paramedics were fantastic as they had a lot to deal with, Me, Technical issues due to bad signals and my frightened wife. During all of this they remained calm, provided assurances to both me and my wife and made outstanding decisions on where I would be best placed to be able to receive hospital treatment. The paramedics took it upon themselves to rather take me direct to John Radcliffe Hospital rather than Milton Keynes (which should have been in accordance with their standard procedure), as they felt that what was going on with me would have been resolved straight away at John Radcliffe.

Their decision proved to be the right one as I was immediately seen by the emergency heart consultant, who was able to stop the heart attack with stent insertions. In addition to this the paramedics went out of their way to call my wife and provide her with further reassurances that I was getting the best care

As part of my rehabilitation process, I started taking up running in April 2022. As running is quite solitary it can become quite mentally strenuous. So I enlisted a running partner, Pepé my Braque D’ Auvergne (French Pointer) and we started a new sport called CaniCross. We started out following the NHS Couch to 5K and built ourselves up to run our first ever 5K in Nov 22.

A year on we progressed to doing our first ever Cani Trail Ultra Marathon in Oct 2023 and we managed to finish the 49Km race. Which is not bad going for only running just over a year. Progressing to this year I have decided to rope in my little sister, Linda Guest, and we have signed up to do our second Cani Trail Ultra Marathon on 23rd of March.

In order to provide a thank you to the very special people at South Central Ambulance Service, who are literally life savers, I am doing the Ultra Marathon to support their designated charity. Please support us to raise some much needed funds in order to support the South Central Ambulance Services. You never know when you will need a First Responder.

Also as a fitting tribute Linda and I will be remembering our Dad, Billy Guest, who sadly passed away from cancer on March 22nd 2013.

More details about the charity and what they do can be found here https://scascharity.org.uk

You can view this video to get a feel for what we will be going through. Pepé and I make an appearance at start.

https://youtu.be/mFsGC9rtAy0?si=WvsWHP-1QYdp3PfF

To see my first Ultra Story please take a look at these videos.

Part 1 : https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGehqA5E6

Part 2: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGehqDUNB/

Please also visit https://www.canitrailuk.co.uk/ultra-cani-trail. Who knows you might even sign up to join us in a future race.