Fareham resident, and goalkeeper for the national England Walking Football Team, Rob Keating, recently visited North Harbour Resource Centre in Portsmouth to meet and say thank you to some of the team from South Central Ambulance Service who saved his life when he suffered a cardiac arrest in May 2024.
Rob had been out with his friends, Matt and John, playing in the last match of the season of their regular snooker league when he began to feel unwell. Rob managed to continue to play two frames but had to keep going outside regularly throughout the match in an attempt to feel better, towards the end of the second frame team captain, Keith, and Rob’s other team mates were so concerned about Rob that they decided to call it a night, and Matt and John said they would take him home.
With Rob deteriorating again just getting to his car and a short while into the journey, they decided to pull over and call 999. An ambulance crew of Jasmine Hitchins, paramedic, and Kim Honeyman, emergency care assistant, soon arrived with the three friends. With Rob on board the ambulance, and on the phone to his wife updating her on what was happening, he suddenly went into cardiac arrest.
Jasmine and Kim were able to restart Rob’s heart but he was still very unwell and very unstable, so they requested back-up from a second ambulance crew of Toni Robinson, paramedic, and Donna McKee-Parker, emergency care assistant. The team were able to get Rob to the Queen Alexandra Hospital but he remained critically unwell.
Rob ended up spending four days in the hospital’s intensive care unit, and at one stage Rob’s wife and their children were told to come in and say their goodbyes to him. The first six months of his recovery were extremely challenging, but Rob has now managed to return to work as a cancer care nurse specialist at University Hospital Southampton, two days a week.
“I really don’t remember a lot about the whole incident, to be honest”, said Rob, “which is probably a good thing. Apparently the first thing I kept asking when I woke up in ICU was whether I’d be able to go to the World Cup in Spain. I think most of the doctors and nurses thought I was away with the fairies, until my family heard about it and explained to them that I do play for England’s national walking football team!”
On Friday, 5 September, Rob and his wife made an emotional visit to SCAS’ North Harbour Resource Centre to meet up with Jasmine, Kim and Toni, as well as shift officer, Mike Edwards, and assistant despatcher, Paul Dickens, who were part of the six-strong emergency operations control room team who also responded to the 999 call.
Jasmine spoke for the whole team when she said, “It was so lovely to see Rob again, and looking much better than when we last saw him. We can remember the job like it was yesterday, and we were all thrilled to get the invitation to meet him as due to a miscommunication earlier in the year we thought he had sadly passed away. Some patients always stay with you and Rob was certainly one of those – we all hope he has many more happy years with his wife, family and his gorgeous new puppy, Molly.”
Rob eventually had an ICD (implantable cardioverter defibrillator) fitted and remains under regular cardiac evaluation from his hospital and GP teams. Sadly, he won’t able to play in the Walking Football World Nations Cup due to be held next month in Spain, to add to the European Cup Winner’s Medal and World Nations Cup Medal he won at the inaugural tournament in November 2023, but he is hoping to still be on the plane and contribute to the team in a coaching capacity.
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Photo: L-to-R: Paul Dickens, Toni Robinson, Kim Honeyman, Rob Keating, Jasmine Hitchins, Mike Edwards