The Wiggles are a children’s musical group that formed back in the 1990s. Recently they reformed for a series of performances for their (now grown up) fans to raise money for the current bushfire relief appeal.

Yesterday, Greg Page (the yellow Wiggle) collapsed on stage at the end of the show and suffered a cardiac arrest.

Nurse saves his life.

Luckily, Grace Jones (a nurse) was at the concert and with the assistance of others, she performed CPR and successfully defibrillated Page with an AED that had been situated nearby.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Grace saved Greg’s life. Others were assisting with CPR but it was the early administration of defibrillation¹ that terminated the cardiac arrest.

How would YOU have responded in this situation?

What is an AED?

AED stands for Automated External Defibrillator. It is a lifesaving device that detects potential lethal heart rhythms (arrhythmias) that stop the heart pumping properly (a cardiac arrest) and may have caused a person to collapse unconscious.

If detected, the AED delivers a measured shock that allows the heart to begin pumping effectively again.

These devices are designed to be easily used by the general public.

Why are they so important?

Delivery of a controlled shock to the heart is the only way to revert a lethal arrhythmia. Every minute that there is a delay in administering the shock the chances of surviving drop by 10% (this can be improved if effective CPR is being given).

Even though paramedics carry defibrillators, their response time can be several minutes (around 16 minutes in major metropolitan cities in Australia). This is why there are now many public AED’s in airports, shopping centres, sports facilities and other public areas.

Havent seen one? Once you are looking for AED’s you start seeing more of them in places you frequently visit.

Seeing them is one thing of course……here is a short video that gives you some idea on how to use them. It is a little cheezy, but gives very important instructions….so stick with it.

If the situation ever arises, being able to do this might quite literally save someones life.

So how is Greg doing?

Greg appears to be doing fine. It sounds like he had some cardiac stents inserted and should make a full recovery.

We’ve visited Greg this morning & he wanted to thank everyone for their well wishes. He’s so grateful for the messages of love & support from⁣ around the world. Greg’s main concern was that the show tonight should go on.⁣ Let’s do it for Greg whilst raising much needed funds pic.twitter.com/8CBT7P8roA

— The Wiggles (@TheWiggles) January 18, 2020

1. To be fair, I was not there and do not know exactly what happened but from reading media accounts Grace took control of the situation and directed CPR and defibrillation. ↩