‘I thought he was snoring’: Then Maja realised Tom was in cardiac arrest

In 2018, Maja Webster helped perform CPR on her husband Tom for 40 minutes, who was in cardiac arrest, while waiting for an ambulance after hiking in the UK. The married couple of 43 years recently returned to complete the walk.

Maja: I met Tom in 1978 at a party in Newport, on Sydney’s northern beaches. He says it was love at first sight for him, but I didn’t really notice him. He was the local Labor candidate for the seat of Wakehurst at that year’s NSW election and, over the next few months, he invited me to all these functions. I never twigged that he was chasing me, but he grew on me. After a while, I thought, “Oh yeah, he’s not too bad!” We got married in 1980.

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What I admired about Tom is that he has the most integrity of anyone I’ve ever known. And he made me commit to things. I was a bit flighty: I’d start something – scuba diving, say – then lose interest. He made me see that you should stick to things. But the great thing about our relationship is that we’ve each done our own thing when we’ve needed to. I’ve travelled around China, Nepal, Patagonia. He didn’t want to go and I didn’t force him.

We’re big walkers. In May 2018, we were in England doing the Coast to Coast Walk. It’s 305 kilometres, straight across the country from Saint Bees in the west [on the Cumbrian Coast] to Robin Hood’s Bay in the east [in North Yorkshire]. It was going well until we were 45 kilometres from finishing, on the moors, when it started snowing hard. We found a hotel, checked in and, when we got to our room, Tom took a bath and we had a lie down. We were just lying there when Tom started making these strange noises. I thought he was snoring until I looked at him and saw he was grey. He was in cardiac arrest.

The adrenaline kicked in. Our friends, Greg and Wendy, were in the next room, so I went and got them. Wendy went to get help while Greg and I dragged Tom off the bed and started CPR. We took turns, but it was mostly him – he’s a former surf lifesaver – and I counted breaths and compressions. It was so foggy they couldn’t get a helicopter in, so we had to wait for an ambulance.

“I leant over Tom and told him he had to live, that he had to be a grandfather.”

After 20 minutes, Wendy came back with an anaesthetics nurse, who took over with Greg. Two barmen then came up and they all rotated. I leant over Tom and told him he had to live, that he had to be a grandfather.

After 45 minutes, the ambulance arrived. They got out their defibrillator, gave Tom an electric shock and he came to. He looked at the paramedics and said, “You’ve had to come so far in such bad weather!” Then he said, “Where’s Maja?” I said, “I’m here.” And he said, “I love you. Please don’t tell the kids.” He didn’t want them to worry. Six days later, at James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, he had a quadruple bypass.