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A community thank-you from Margaret Charman

“In my book, humour gets you through almost anything.”

On April 21, the day before our 45th anniversary, I suffered a cardiac arrest at home in Sandspit. If not for the quick action of my husband Brian, who started CPR immediately and called for the ambulance, I wouldn’t be writing this.

I would like to thank all the first responders who attended: the Sandspit ambulance attendants and Coast Guard who took over and transported me to Charlotte, the Charlotte ambulance attendants, the doctors and nurses at the Charlotte hospital who worked on me there, the air ambulance crew who flew me to Prince Rupert by helicopter, then directly down to Vancouver by plane, and finally to the staff at Vancouver General Hospital. And of course my family and friends, who were with me through my 10 days in hospital and after.

If I had a choice of where this had happened, I would have chosen exactly where it did. It’s always a challenge and even more so when quite often it’s a friend you are trying to save. To my friends and family, I’m sorry to have put you through that.

I’m happy to report that things have turned out very well, considering. I lost around 10 or so days of memory. I apparently kept telling everyone “Just call me Dory” because of my short-term memory loss. In my book, humour gets you through almost anything. Anyway, I now have some new hardware installed — a defibrillator/pacemaker — and I’m looking forward to coming home.

I would also like to thank those in our islands communities who have supported us through this difficult time, both with words of encouragement and in the financial contributions collected to help us through all the added expense.

We are very humbled by this show of support and thank you all from the heart. We are so very thankful to live in such a community as ours.

By Margaret Charman and family, Sandspit