Patient celebrates "guardian angels" at Hammersmith Hospital who restarted his heart and nursed him to health
22 September 2025
“Cheers!” My wife, son and daughter-in-law were sitting with me in one of those ordinary-but-grand corner brasseries in Paris in July. The toast was in champagne and at 11am, unusually early in the day. But it was my birthday, a significant one, and breaking rules about morning drinking seemed unimportant, as the reality of actually being able to clink glasses to toast the occasion hit home.
You see, just seven months previously, I’d been a patient in the care of Ward A9 at Hammersmith Hospital, having undergone ‘routine’ surgery to repair two of my heart valves. The operation, in the supremely secure hands of my wonderful surgeon, Mr Emad Al Jaaly, had gone smoothly. I was about to be discharged when I suddenly felt very unwell, vomited twice and collapsed.
What followed is a blur of half-remembered chaos as a crash team pumped me full of meds and prepared to open my chest for a second operation. “I’m sorry,” said Mr Al Jaaly, who’d been summoned from home to reoperate, “we have to do it.” Ah, well, if you must. And despite – as it turned out – having suffered a cardiac arrest owing to a build-up of fluid around my heart – I managed to maintain my sense of the ridiculous: “Do you consent to our cutting off your pyjamas?” someone asked, politely. “As if! Of course”, I struggled to reply.
"while my family were toasting me, I was quietly raising my glass to the team in Hammersmith Hospital Cardiology Unit and ICU who literally saved my life."
Simon Elmes
After a strange hallucinogenic tunnel of three days of anaesthetic unconsciousness, I emerged into Hammersmith’s ICU with my chest reconstructed and my heart beating again, as I set out on my recovery pathway. A journey that led all the way to that celebratory glass of birthday champagne.
But while my family were toasting me, I was quietly raising my glass to the team in Hammersmith Hospital Cardiology Unit and ICU who literally saved my life. From Paris, I emailed my infinite gratitude to the two wonderful ANPs, Marta and Valentina, who managed to coax my reluctant heart to restart and thus allowed my second life to begin. They were my guardian angels.
But the whole team deserve my deep gratitude. As I’ve repeated many times, they looked after me with not just outstanding professional care, but – and it may seem a strange word to use – with love. They made me laugh when I was low, they washed and dressed me when things went wrong. All uncomplainingly and with great good humour. What, as I endlessly said, was not to like? In fact, I still, nine months on, feel a huge bond of friendship with them all, not just with the masterly surgeons and brilliant nurses, but the catering team who always made me laugh (and tea!), the cleaners, quietly going about their routines, uncomplaining, and the porters who raced me down with F1 driving skills to Imaging for yet another scan or X-ray.
Am I crazy to say I even ‘enjoyed’ my stay in Hammersmith? Probably. But thanks to the care and affection everyone wrapped me in, I’ve made a complete recovery and have only the fondest and most appreciative memories of my three weeks on DuCane Road. Cheers!
Have you or a loved one experienced outstanding care at one of our hospitals? Find out how you can give back.
