I heard the ambulance siren getting closer. And then a voice: ‘Where do you live? We’ll take your bike home for you’

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I was coming down a mountain bike trail when I became aware of an odd ache in the middle of my chest. At the time I was working as a specialist anaesthetist, and also had a history of working in intensive care medicine, so I immediately knew the significance of such a sensation. Which is: I was having a heart attack halfway down a mountain, somewhere an ambulance wouldn’t be able to reach me.

I knew that to have any shot of making it out alive I had to get myself down to the car park, so I coasted on my bike to the bottom of the trail, all while gripped by central chest pain. I made it to my car, got my phone and called an ambulance.