Pub owner was having a pint with his mates when he dropped 'dead'

Wednesday, 31 January 2018

He biked to the local pub to have a beer with his workmates.

Then he dropped 'dead'.

Ray Waite had just ordered a beer at the Longford Tavern in Gore when he suffered a massive heart attack and dropped to the floor.

'I don't remember a thing. I remember getting there and what happened afterwards, but I don't remember being dead.

'There was no great bloody white light or anything like that. Then when I came around all the fellas from work were on top of me and I told them to get off.'

His workmates from the Mataura Valley Milk plant at McNab had used the bar's defibrillator to resuscitate him.

'That was the big thing, that they had that there. Otherwise I'd still be dead.

'They did a great thing, those fellas.'

He walked to the ambulance but was then flown to Dunedin Hospital where he underwent a six-way bypass, which came as a surprise because he'd never had any heart problems but suffered from some hypertension.

'I didn't feel a thing. There was no pain when it happened or anything like that.'

Waite had a heart attack on January 11 and has now returned home to Hikutaia on the Hauraki Plains, where he's owned the Pioneer Tavern for 24 years.

He's putting a defibrillator in the bar in case the same thing happens to one of his patrons.

'Lesson learnt. I'll be putting one in here. We'll get the money from the Lions Club or someone like that.'

He's under doctor's orders to rest up for the next 12 weeks but he's keen to return to Gore to finish his six month contract at the milk factory, and to return to the Longford Tavern, which had ordered in Waikato Draught especially for him and his North Island-based workmates.

'I've got to go back and get my caravan anyway.'

Mataura Licensing Trust general manager Mark Paterson said the trust had defibrillators in all of the bars it operated and had installed and maintained them in other community facilities like sports clubs, RSA's and Gore's SBS St James Theatre.

'If one machine saves one life it has achieved its goal and I am so delighted that we had one operational at the Longford to save Ray's life.

'I am extremely proud of Melissa Robinson who operated the defib machine and the punters who helped that day. 

'It is so important that we have these all over the trust area especially the outlying areas as time is of the essence when someone goes down with a heart attack, as I can attest to.

'It is these machines and the St Johns volunteers that we the public need to be grateful for and thank and support at every opportunity we get.'