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Former Fitzroy star Jason Baldwin’s fight to survive after massive heart attack
Ex-Fitzroy footballer Jason Baldwin has opened up on his incredible battle to survive after suffering a massive heart attack and spending three months in a coma.Jon Anderson - Herald Sun - September 7th 2024
Three months ago former Fitzroy footballer Jason Baldwin was celebrating the 21st birthday of his daughter Abbey as a healthy enough 54-year-old scaffolder with a love of family, fishing, sport and his pair of Cavoodle dogs.
Today he lies in hospital, his home the past three months after a massive heart attack the day after Abbey’s party. His story – he was written off three times in that period and in a coma for five weeks – is an extraordinary one of courage, love and luck, and a reminder for men to have regular heart checks.
Baldwin, who played 125 games with Fitzroy from 1989-96 and two for Richmond in 1997, had no reason to suspect he was a heart attack victim after a regular check-up last year cleared him of any warning signs.
Then came June 16 this year in his family’s Lower Plenty home, a feeling of extreme coldness followed a collapse on his bed. And that was the beginning of an amazing story of survival, as Jason explained.
“Our daughter Abbey is a nursing student so luckily she was able to perform CPR until the ambos arrived and then they worked for something like 50 minutes. They say normally 40 minutes of CPR is maximum without having some sort of brain function issues. Somehow all my CT scans and MRIs have come out normal,” said Jason from the Austin Hospital, where he remains in a bed waiting for rehabilitation to begin.
“Originally I was given a one per cent chance of survival, but after I kept living they were saying there would be brain damage. Then after my coma for five weeks they were saying there was a five per cent chance of survival.
“Early on I was transferred from the Austin to the The Alfred ICU as I needed specialist heart support in the form of an ECMO machine a (heart lung bypass). I remained in a coma and on life support for five weeks and in ICU for eight weeks. I have been back at the Austin for two weeks. Can’t walk yet because I have lost a lot of muscle mass but I’ll get there.”
Baldwin was part of Fitzroy’s last ever game in Melbourne, a 151-point thrashing at the hands of Richmond at the MCG on Sunday, August 25, 1996. He remains close to a number of his ex-teammates, and has been visited by many of them over the past three months including Matthew Armstrong, Frank Bizzotto, Michael Gale, Jimmy Wynd, Ashley Matthews, Mark Zanotti, Brett Chandler, Brett Stephens, Ross Lyon, Paul Roos (by phone from Hawaii), Darren “Doc” Wheildon, Richard Osborne, Robert Shaw, Brett Cook, Martin Pike and Tom Kavanagh.
Jason and former teammates Martin Pike, Mark Zanotti and Brett Chandler
One of those players, Brett Chandler, is a direct beneficiary of Baldwin’s heart attack:
“After my heart attack a number of boys have had calcium scores and heart checks, where Brett was found to have a 90 per cent blockage, plus four boys from where I work at Central Scaffolding (Dandenong) for my great mate Brett Fisher, were found with blockages and had stents put in.
“I played at 78kg and was around 80kg in June, I got down to 60kg and I’m now 66kg. They cut out a couple of metres of my small intestine which will require another operation in about six months when I get healthier. I’ve got some solid rehab ahead of me.
“Because I was actually dead for a period after my heart attack, people ask you is there anything on the other side. To be honest I had a memory of cooking toast for breakfast with a mate who lives in Thailand, and obviously I wasn’t there.”
Initially Baldwin was reluctant to do this story, but relented given the benefits he has already seen of friends getting heart checks and potentially having their lives saved. His own medical expenses are obviously going to be huge and his days of scaffolding may be behind him, so friends such as Brett Chandler have organised a fundraiser website. .
