'Doctors said I was fit and healthy - then my life changed'

JUST days before his heart stopped beating, Peter Heathcote was dangling from a bungee cord in Mexico.

- LOIS MCCARTHY

Soon after, he was sprinting up a Welsh mountain, pausing only to let his younger friend catch up. Life was always full-throttle - until, suddenly, it wasn't.

At the age of 55, Peter didn't expect to suffer a cardiac arrest. He wasn't just fit for his age - he was active, energetic and constantly on the move.

From horse riding across the Andes in Peru last spring to running a nine-acre smallholding in Risca with his wife Katherine and children, he lived life at pace.

"We've always been busy people," Peter, from Caerphilly, says.

"Even after we retired in 2016, it wasn’t really retirement. We've got horses, sheep, chickens, dogs - and we use the land to run community events. In September, we hosted an event for vulnerable people including survivors of abuse and cancer, introducing them to Icelandic horses. There is always something going on!"

Peter’s lifestyle was as healthy as it was active. He had regular blood tests and the results were normal.

His BMI was around 25.5, he didn’t smoke, and though he enjoyed a glass of wine now and then, it was nothing excessive. His doctor had given him a clean bill of health - a routine score known as a Q-score showed that, if anything, he was at low risk of any cardiac events.

"I've had routine blood tests and all of them were good. No issues were flagged at all," he recalls.

"The doctors would do a Q-score, and even my GP said that if I'd done that a month before my cardiac arrest, I would have been right at the bottom of the risk scale."

That's what made what happened next so unexpected.

On the evening of January 22 this year, Peter felt a little more tired than usual, but he put it down to jetlag after flying home from Mexico.

“I went to bed early, I didn’t think much of it,’ he said. “There were no other symptoms to suggest that something else was going on.”

The next morning, things took a rapid change for the worst.