Three children who tragically lost their dad at a young age after he had a heart attack at the wheel are fighting for awareness of heart health.

Adam Robinson, who was 40, was working as a chartered accountant in Doha when he suddenly died while on the way to the doctor on September 2, 2019.

His wife, Laura, and their three children Daniel, 4, Caitlin, 7, and Ben, 9, had just returned to the UK the previous day after spending the summer out in Qatar with him.

Laura, now 39, told Metro.co.uk: ‘We got a phone message from Adam wishing our son Dan a good first day at nursery.

‘But then throughout the day we heard nothing from him, and that was strange because Caitlin and Ben weren’t at school, so they’d been sending him messages and pictures and he hadn’t replied.

‘That evening his boss texted me and asked how our flight home had been – I thought that was a bit strange. I asked him if Adam was okay, because we hadn’t heard from him.’

She said Adam’s boss called her to say he didn’t know where Adam was, and that’s when they knew something was wrong.

‘His boss was amazing and had driven round to all the hospitals in Doha trying to find Adam,’ full-time mum Laura added.

She said the family, from Roundhay in Leeds, figured out how to track Adam’s phone through his Google account.

‘When I tracked it, very weirdly it pinpointed his phone to the hospital in Doha,’ Laura said. ‘I sent a screenshot to Adam’s boss but at the time I didn’t panic… it was just surreal.’

‘The last Adam’s boss had heard from him was when he’d called him in the morning and said he wasn’t feeling great and had been sick, but was going to come into work and would go to the doctor if he didn’t feel any better.

‘Later he left work to go to the doctor and on the way there, that’s when he had a heart attack in the car.

‘But weirdly there was no real damage to the car – it was a friend’s car he was driving.

‘I’m told he died instantly because by the time anyone had got to him in the car he was gone.’

The family had to get the death certificate translated from Arabic, and it said ‘heart failed’. It sounded as if he had suffered a heart attack at the wheel, which led to a cardiac arrest.

They were shocked as Adam was ‘fit and healthy’, regularly went to the gym and had recently passed a full medical for his life insurance.

Laura said: ‘We literally had left Adam 24 hours before and I was just thinking, “How could this be possible?”

‘A tiny bit of me thought that it must be a mistake. It only really hit home when Adam’s boss said he’d seen him.

‘Adam’s parents flew to Doha to bring him back home, but I needed to stay with the kids, they needed me.’

Laura, who met Adam on a night out in 2004 when he was at a stag party, described the 10 months which followed as ‘being hit with more and more grief’ when the family lost several more relatives to both cancer and Covid-19.

Causes of cardiac arrest and how to treat it

A common cause of a cardiac arrest is a life-threatening abnormal heart rhythm called ventricular fibrillation (VF), the British Heart Foundation says.

VF happens when the electrical activity of the heart becomes so chaotic that the heart stops beating and instead quivers. A heart attack can be another cause of cardiac arrest.

During a cardiac arrest, starting immediate CPR is vital as it keeps blood and oxygen circulating to the brain and around the body. A defibrillator will then deliver a controlled electric shock to try and get the heart beating normally again.

Public access defibrillators are often in locations like train stations and shopping centres. Anyone can use one and you don’t need training to do so. 

If you’re with someone who is having a cardiac arrest, call 999, start CPR and use a defibrillator if there is one nearby. Follow instructions from the emergency call operator until emergency services take over.

She was concerned about whether Adam had any genetic conditions, but his immediate blood relatives were checked and returned a full bill of health. The children will be fully tested when they are teenagers.

Laura credits her older sister Debbie, 42, with offering the family ‘amazing support’ and helping the children find ways of communicating their feelings about what happened to their dad.

Aunt Debbie, a senior support worker for adults with learning disabilities, signed the kids up for a 874-mile expedition at the end of last year, where challengers walk the same distance from Land’s End to John o’ Groats through local treks.

She told Metro.co.uk: ‘I wanted to do it really for my mental health because I was struggling with that at the beginning of 2020, and I had some counselling.

‘I’d always enjoyed walking and I thought at that point it might be good for the children to do the challenge too to help them with their mental health and their grief.’

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a webbrowser thatsupports HTML5video

The children were given several options of which charity to support through their challenge, and they immediately chose the British Heart Foundation ‘so that we can help other people like daddy who have poorly hearts’.

Starting their trek during the pandemic, Debbie and the kids have now raised £4,000 and were shortlisted for the charity’s Virtual Heart Hero Awards, taking place tonight.

Laura added: ‘I’m so proud of them. They were so excited when we started and were like giddy kippers wanting to constantly know how far they’d walked and how much money they’d raised.

‘The total was constantly going up and a lot of strangers we met on our walk just donated money when they found out their story, which was wonderful.

‘The kids were really surprised by that but loved seeing the total going up – that was priceless for them. The response has been phenomenal.’

She said the walks have really encouraged the children to talk about their dad and the legacy he has left behind.

‘A lot of people feel they have to pussyfoot around the kids, but they just want to be treated normally and talk about their dad, and the silly stuff he did with them and the great memories they have,’ Laura added.

And to this day, youngest son Daniel is adamant that ‘daddy’s in the moon’.

The British Heart Foundation

Ben, Caitlin and Daniel are finalists in the British Heart Foundation’s Virtual Heart Hero Awards 2021, which is premiering on YouTube at 7pm tonight to mark World Heart Day.

Hosted by Vernon Kay, a host of celebrity presenters will share inspiring stories of bravery and resilience from young people to healthcare professionals, and CPR lifesavers to inspirational fundraisers.

Click here to register to view the awards tonight.

World Heart Day is on September 29 and aims to raise awareness that heart conditions, including heart disease and stroke, is the world’s leading cause of death claiming 18.6 million lives each year.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Source: Read Full Article