What was supposed to be a relaxing family getaway in paradise turned suddenly into a terrifying medical emergency at sea for Joshua Gul.
The 55-year-old Buderim man was one of 16 family members who boarded the Carnival cruise ship Encounter in Brisbane on 24 June, excited for a four-night adventure to the magical Whitsundays to celebrate his father’s 80th birthday.
On day two, the holiday at sea took a very unexpected and serious turn.
When the cruise ship was anchored offshore at Airlie Beach, Joshua awoke at 6am with radiating pain in his left hand and arm, which grew quickly in intensity.
His wife Nancy was immediately alarmed and alerted family members in the cabin next door.
“Thankfully, they quickly rang the onboard medical team who arrived at our cabin within five minutes,” she said.
“When the doctor and nurses arrived, he was already unconscious and had gone into cardiac arrest - they had to start resuscitation immediately; it all happened so fast.”
The team performed CPR on Joshua for 30 minutes as his wife and 16-year-old daughter stood by in what she describes as a “terrifying ordeal”.
In a complex and well-coordinated emergency transfer, he was taken from the cruise ship to shore by shuttle boat and then by ambulance to Proserpine Hospital.
He was medically evacuated by rescue helicopter from Proserpine Hospital to Mackay Base Hospital, arriving by 1pm and was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
Joshua was placed in an induced coma and spent the next five days being ventilated. He was so gravely ill, his family decided to leave the cruise; his parents hired a car to be by his bedside and other family members followed, catching a maxi taxi from Airlie Beach to Mackay to lend Nancy their support.
On day seven in the hospital and two days after he finally woke up, Joshua underwent an angiogram at the Cardiac Catheter Lab (CCL) at the hospital. This identified the potential blockage and narrowing of blood vessels in his heart as the cause of his cardiac episode.
“We’ve been extremely impressed by the level of care he’s had here in Mackay – it’s exceeded our expectations,” Nancy said.
“It’s a very good team in the ICU, they are very efficient. Everyone from the paramedics on the helicopter right through to the doctors and nurses in the ICU and Cardiac Care Unit (CCU) has been great and the communication with us has been excellent.”
Nancy said the family appreciated the knowledge and support of staff through such a stressful ordeal away from home, particularly that of Dr Levi Atamanchuk in the CCU and Dr Stephen Luke and Dr Ashwin Suniil Wadwani in the ICU, as well as nursing staff.
“Even the paramedics were very reassuring that the Mackay ICU and CCU teams were the absolute best and that my husband was in very, very good hands here,” she said.
“That gave me some positivity in what was a very dark time for us.”
Nancy considers it an “absolute miracle” that her husband of 24 years woke up in the hospital without any cognitive impairment.
She credits the initial rapid response by the cruise ship medical team, an efficient and fast retrieval process, combined with his excellent treatment in Mackay and Proserpine Hospitals, for his survival.
“Joshua was very lucky in what was an incredibly unlucky situation for us,” she said.
“If this cardiac episode had happened at home and not on the cruise ship in the Whitsundays, Joshua wouldn’t have had such rapid access to care like he did, and he probably wouldn’t have made it.”
Mackay Base Hospital ICU director Stephen Luke said Joshua’s cardiac ordeal offshore highlighted how crucial a fast and well-coordinated medical intervention was.
“CPR and defibrillation on the cruise ship truly saved his life,” Dr Luke said.
“This is the chain of survival at work, with the added challenges of retrieval off the cruise ship and distance in North Queensland.
“We were all really excited to see Josh wake up without serious damage to his brain. We're also very fortunate to have such a great partnership with our cardiologists here in Mackay,” he said.
Joshua hasn’t ruled out a return to a cruise ship holiday after he recovers from further medical intervention once home at the Sunshine Coast University Hospital; his family is somewhat less keen.
It was the third cruise ship holiday his mother, Phylis Gul, had to abort due to illness or injury.
“I’ll be back though; I was having a great time on the ship … but I was on a shuttle boat, had my first ride in a helicopter as well as an ambulance trip – and I missed all of it as I was unconscious,” Joshua said.