For NSW Health Pathology collector Madeleine Healey, volunteering with St John Ambulance NSW was always about helping others, but she never imagined she would one day help save someone’s life.

Madeleine, a col­lec­tor from North­ern Syd­ney was vol­un­teer­ing for St John Ambu­lance NSW at a Syd­ney Kings Bas­ket­ball game when she and her team were called to assist a patron expe­ri­enc­ing a pos­si­ble car­diac event.

“It was East­er Sun­day after­noon at Qudos Bank Are­na and the Syd­ney Kings were tak­ing on the Ade­laide 36ers in the NBL Cham­pi­onship final. The Kings had just won in dra­mat­ic over­time,” she said.

“When we arrived on scene, we con­firmed the per­son was actu­al­ly in car­diac arrest,” Madeleine said.

Under the direc­tion of their St John com­man­der, the team imme­di­ate­ly began CPR, admin­is­tered oxy­gen and attached an auto­mat­ed exter­nal defib­ril­la­tor (AED).

“We moved the per­son from the seat­ing area into the atri­um where we con­tin­ued resus­ci­ta­tion efforts until NSW Ambu­lance arrived,” she said.

“Thank­ful­ly, NSW Ambu­lance got there quick­ly, and we worked along­side them until we achieved return of spon­ta­neous cir­cu­la­tion before the patient was trans­port­ed to West­mead Hospital.”

Madeleine played a crit­i­cal role as part of the com­pres­sions team. She also became the “acci­den­tal scribe”, record­ing details of the resus­ci­ta­tion effort on her arm with a mark­er pen in the heat of the moment.

At the same time, she was also sup­port­ing a younger St John cadet who was attend­ing one of their first major emergencies.

“We had a cadet with us that day, so I was check­ing in with him and mak­ing sure he was okay and not over­whelmed with every­thing hap­pen­ing,” she said.

In anoth­er stroke of good tim­ing, a Roy­al North Shore Hos­pi­tal emer­gency spe­cial­ist Dr Chris Partkya was watch­ing the game and helped pro­vide crit­i­cal care at the scene and also accom­pa­nied the patient to West­mead Hos­pi­tal. Dr Partkya also works as a Pre­hos­pi­tal and Retrieval Spe­cial­ist for NSW Ambu­lance, so was the right per­son in the right place.

In NSW, only around one in ten peo­ple who suf­fer a car­diac arrest in the com­mu­ni­ty sur­vive to return home, but effec­tive chest com­pres­sions in the first crit­i­cal min­utes can sig­nif­i­cant­ly improve outcomes.

Weeks lat­er, St John Ambu­lance NSW helped organ­ise a reunion to recon­nect the patient, Adam, and his wife with the St John team.

Patient Adam Wil­son and his wife (seat­ed, mid­dle) got the chance to per­son­al­ly thank the  St John Ambu­lance NSW First Respon­ders who pro­vid­ed him with life­sav­ing CPR in April.  Madeleine is pic­tured back row, 3^rd from the right.

“It was won­der­ful to meet Adam and see him walk­ing and talk­ing with us,” Madeleine said.

“He shared a cou­ple of jokes about the event say­ing he ‘slept through the whole thing’ and he seemed remark­ably well con­sid­er­ing what had happened.”

For Madeleine, the expe­ri­ence was espe­cial­ly sig­nif­i­cant because it was the first time she had ever per­formed chest com­pres­sions on a patient.

“It’s such a rare thing for some­one to sur­vive an out-of-hos­pi­tal car­diac arrest, so to have such a pos­i­tive out­come was phe­nom­e­nal,” she said.

Madeleine joined St John Ambu­lance NSW in 2025 after being encour­aged by a long-time friend. Since com­plet­ing her first vol­un­teer duty in July, she has con­tributed more than 250 vol­un­teer hours ever since.

Ear­li­er this year, she achieved her Cer­tifi­cate II in Med­ical Ser­vice First Response, allow­ing her to for­mal­ly use the title of First Respon­der with­in St John Ambu­lance NSW. She also vol­un­teers with the Granville Juniors divi­sion, teach­ing first aid skills to chil­dren aged 8 to 12 years.

“It’s so reward­ing to give back to the next generation.”

On the back of Vol­un­teer Appre­ci­a­tion Week (18–24 May), Madeleine is encour­ag­ing peo­ple of all ages to con­sid­er giv­ing back and enquire with their local St John about vol­un­teer­ing in their own communities.

‘You nev­er know what you might dis­cov­er, there are many per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al ben­e­fits that come from giv­ing back,” she said.

At NSW Health Pathol­o­gy, Madeleine works across mul­ti­ple col­lec­tion ser­vices and loca­tions through­out North­ern Syd­ney, with many of her shifts based at Roy­al North Shore Hospital.

“I enjoy being able to move around the dis­trict and con­nect with col­leagues I wouldn’t nor­mal­ly see,” she said.

Well done Madeleine, we’re so proud of you and we’re thrilled there was a pos­i­tive out­come for Adam and his fam­i­ly, all thanks to your sup­port and quick thinking!

To learn more about the work of St John and how you can get involved, vis­it: https://stjohnnsw.com.au/get-involved/

Clin­i­cians who are in a posi­tion to help can become Good­SAM respon­ders – Good­SAM is a smart­phone app that alerts reg­is­tered vol­un­teers near­by when some­one needs imme­di­ate hands only CPR before an ambu­lance arrives. Learn more here: https://www.goodsamapp.org/

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