'I realised it was a heart attack and I could die'

A doctor who suffered a heart attack minutes after finishing a shift said she realised she could die after recognising her own symptoms.

Dr Carol Ighofose started to suffer from chest pain and quickly realised she was having a heart attack in January 2018, when she was 48.

She said her heart was "barely beating" when she arrived at the nearby Leicester General Hospital where she received life-saving treatment.

She is now aiming to tackle the stigma of heart disease with a bright red bench, installed by the British Heart Foundation (BHF), where her heart attack took place.

The mum of two said she was driving home from a shift at an urgent treatment service when her symptoms started.

"I'm starting to get not just a mild discomfort in my chest, I'm now getting pain," she said.

"I realised this is a heart attack and it could mean the end of my life.

"I thought 'oh my god, I could die'.

"I realised that this could be my last moment."

Fortunately, at the time of her heart attack, she was on the phone to a friend, who called for an ambulance that took her to hospital.

"I had to deal with a lot of pain," she said.

"But using that pain helps me to be clear about my purpose in life, and I'm determined that I'm going to fulfil that purpose, because I survived and I'm here to fulfil it and I'm going to do it."

Ighofose, now 56, is one of 65 heart attack survivors who are having red benches installed in their "living memory" by the BHF.

The project marks the 65th anniversary of the charity and hopes to encourage conversations about heart disease.

Her bench has been installed outside the Welford Road stadium, on the corner of Walnut Street.

Melanie Meik, regional fundraising manager for the BHF, said: "If you look at the bench, you'll notice that it says in living memory.

"That's a unique twist on an ordinary bench and what we're doing is celebrating 65 incredible people and their journeys with their own heart conditions.

"We want to spark that conversation about heart health and show that cardiovascular disease is an invisible condition and it can often be very sudden as well."

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