Mates save South West man Merv Himing’s life after suffering heart attack during game of pool

A man is lucky to be alive after his friends brought him back from the brink of death during a Christmas Eve game of pool in his retirement village just north of Bunbury. Retired businessman Merv Himing, 82, was playing his weekly Sunday evening pool game with four of his friends when he suffered a heart attack and collapsed. Things were looking dire for Merv when his breathing slowed to a crawl and his pulse could not be found. Luckily his friends Ross French, Peter Trigdett, Brian Mitchell and Noel Cowan stepped in to help with some quick thinking. They were helped by Gary Giblett who has decades of experience working as a team captain for a mine’s rescue team who just happened to be walking past with his dog when the incident occurred. He was able to administer CPR and eventually a defibrillator to Merv to buy time for the ambulance to arrive. At this point, Merv had just a three per cent chance of survival. “I wouldn’t be here now if it happened at home on the Sunday night, I was so lucky,” he said. “I would just to say thanks very much, it is unbelievable what they did for me. “And to all the people in the community thanks, they’ve all been getting on the phone and asking ‘is Merv ok, is Merv ok?’ and they’ve come and knocked on the front door.” He is now recovering at home after an ambulance crew transported him to Bunbury Regional Hospital for initial treatment as he remained unconscious for the entirety of Christmas Day and later woke up on Boxing Day. He was later fitted with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, a small device inserted in his chest to regulate irregular heartbeats, at Fiona Stanley Hospital. “I went for a big walk all the way around the premises last night with my ex-mother-in-law’s wheelie thing,” he said. “I’ll be walking every night. “I haven’t done it before and the doctor said you should start walking more and I hadn’t, so now I’ve got to do it.” Gary said the community in the retirement village was always looking out for one another. “That’s one of the things about the village because not necessarily that but in the village, they look after one another,” he said. “There’s people at hand all the time, not everybody knows everything but no matter what subject it is, there’s enough around to be able to help steer people through different directions.” They have been nominated for a RLSWA Bravery Award for their efforts which is now under review.