Cardiff City team doctor fights to help people survive cardiac arrests after the death of daughter
A father is fighting to help more people survive cardiac arrests after the death of his daughter at the age of just 25.
Cardiff City team doctor, Len Nokes, 64, looked on as paramedics tried to revive his daughter Claire at a friend's house. She never regained consciousness and passed away in hospital 10 months later.
Professor Nokes and his wife Sarah are now raising CPR and defibrillator awareness after he wrote a book about dealing with his daughter's death. Only Time Will Tell is available now.
He chairs the Welsh government-funded Save a Life Cymru organisation, which he believes could help prevent 1,200 deaths a year.
Prof Nokes said: “My daughter collapsed at a friend’s house and I got there the same time as the paramedics.
“I was watching what was going on and could see on the screen her heart was in a rhythm that wasn’t shockable.
“Her heart stopped beating for so long she had a lack of oxygen to her brain and later passed away naturally in hospital.
“From that moment onwards I decided I didn’t want another parent to go through what we had gone through.”
Prof Nokes was at home on December 28, 2016 when he received a phone call saying Claire had collapsed.
He drove half a mile to the scene where he watched the desperate efforts to revive her. By the time her heart had restarted she had been without oxygen for so long she had significant brain damage.
Claire, who had undiagnosed myocarditis, died the following October.
A big part of Prof Nokes’ work involves persuading businesses to register their devices and install them in unlocked cabinets on exterior walls. Crucially, this means they can be used 24/7 by anyone.
Last year one cardiac patient died after those helping him struggled to access adefibrillator due to poor phone reception.
Prof Nokes said: “Time is critical – every one minute delay increases the chance of you dying by 10 per cent.
“In this case they needed to phone a number to get a code to open the cabinet.
“There were difficulties with reception so these poor people had to run to a landline – they lost the patient.
“That person may have died anyway but it’s about giving the best possible chance. If the cabinet had been unlocked they’d have simply taken out the device.”
Prof Nokes says many defibrillators are kept in locked cabinets due to fears of theft or vandalism. But work is being done to educate teenagers that the devices could one day save their relatives or friends.
Prof Nokes hopes his work will help raise survival rates for an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest from around 5% to 25%.
This would bring Wales, which has 6,000 cardiac arrests a year, in line with some of the best performing countries in Europe.