“He didn’t say anything about pain in his chest.”
Thinking nothing of it, the couple went to bed that night.
About 2am, she woke to her husband making strange noises, something he occasionally did. But when the noises didn’t stop, she quickly realised he was having a heart attack.
She got him onto the floor and began performing CPR while her children called out to see if everything was okay.
“I didn’t want to scare them. I just said that Dad was feeling a bit sick.”
She called a doctor, who arrived and immediately told her to call an ambulance. By the time it arrived, he had died, aged just 38.
“I should have called the ambulance first, but I didn’t think it through,” she said. “You should always call 111.”
She had no reason to expect he would be suffering from a cardiac arrest. But the experience helped her to recognise the symptoms when another loved one suffered a heart attack.
“I was only 32 when my first husband died, so after a few years, I remarried to my current husband,” she said.
One afternoon, he was experiencing stomach pains, so she offered him some paracetamol, but he didn’t want any.
He went to bed but later awoke still in pain, so Hansen decided they needed to go to hospital.
“Halfway there, I just thought I hope he’s not having a heart attack.”
But he was. He was flown urgently to Wellington Hospital to receive an angiogram and angioplasty, from which he recovered well.
In 2021, Hansen was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, a heart rhythm disorder.
“I used to get an erratic heartbeat but didn’t think much of it,” she said.
“It wasn’t until I started to take up tramping with a group that everything came to a head.”
She had joked that one day she was going to end up with a pacemaker, then on one tramp her symptoms intensified.
“I felt awful, then I vomited, and it all went to custard.”
Conscious of her risk, she now exercises closer to home and keeps track of her heart rate on her smartwatch, which also lets her husband track her, just in case.
She is sharing her story as part of the Heart Foundation’s Big Heart Appeal, which will see volunteers collecting nationwide today and tomorrow to fund life-saving heart research and support for people living with heart disease.
She hopes her story could one day help save lives.
“Talking about what has happened to me can help educate people.
“Especially those who don’t know the signs. I didn’t know the signs when it came to my first husband’s cardiac arrest.
“The funds raised also help support education for New Zealand heart professionals and improve treatment for those living with heart disease. It’s an important cause that’s close to my heart.”
