Extraordinary story of survival: Nurse, bystanders labelled heroes for saving Yellow Wiggles life – Sydney Morning Herald

Page, 48, is now recovering after having a procedure at Westmead Hospital, with The Wiggles releasing a photo of the children’s performer sitting up in a hospital bed smiling around midday on Saturday.

The group’s other “yellow Wiggle” Emma Watkins will take Page’s place in tonight’s repeat bushfire relief concert, which is set to go ahead despite Page’s absence.

Ms Jones, who said she had been a fan of The Wiggles since childhood, worked on Page for 20 minutes, delivering three shocks before paramedics arrived.

Ms Jones said she was the only person present with medical training “so I just started to do what I do at work”.

Ms Jones said it was a stressful, high-pressure situation.

“It was really, really scary definitely,” she said.

NSW Ambulance paramedic Brian Parsell said he arrived to find Page unconscious, but “miraculously he had cardiac output so his heart was actually beating”.

“It’s only through the efforts of the bystanders before we arrived that he’s alive today,” he said. “It was actually an extraordinary story of survival.”

The Wiggles’ manager Paul Field expressed his gratitude to the first responders who performed CPR on Page, who suffers from orthostatic intolerance, an often undiagnosed circulatory system disorder that affects blood flow.

“He was in such a serious way [Friday] night, he needed CPR … he stopped breathing a number of times. It was quite dramatic,” he said outside Westmead Hospital.

Field told Seven News that Page asked him if he had finished the show. “I said, ‘yes mate, you finished the show. Bit of a melodramatic exit but you did finish the show’.”

Mr Parsell urged people to acquire essential life saving skills: “The more people learn CPR and use defibrillators, the more lives we’re actually going to save.”

He said Ms Jones should be congratulated for having the courage to step forward and save Page’s life.

“It’s only through her efforts and the other people CPR that Greg’s alive,” he said.

“The hero of the story here today is Grace. It’s only for her being that brave and step forward. We’re good paramedics and we do a great job. But we’re only as good as the people that are there performing CPR and using a defibrillator before we arrive.”

Mr Parsell said Page suffered a blockage of one of the main blood vessels in his heart, which resulted in a cardiac arrest.

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“The chain of survival is minutes to save lives,” he said. “Whenever your brain is deficient of oxygenated blood supply for three to five minutes is that absolute critical period when we need to intervene and people can do CPR.

“Had the team that was on stage not commenced CPR, had Grace not actually had the courage to use that defibrillator, then we may have been dealing with a different outcome.”

Ms Jones said she felt relieved and happy after a photograph of Page in hospital giving a thumbs up sign was posted on social media.

“I hope his chest isn’t too sore,” she said.

Medical condition

Page has spoken publicly before about suffering from orthostatic intolerance, an often undiagnosed circulatory system disorder that affects blood flow.

In his memoir Now and Then: The Life-Changing Journey of the Original Yellow Wiggle, Page talks about how the illness forced him to leave The Wiggles in 2006, after 15 years of touring the world with his best friends. He returned to The Wiggles briefly in 2012, but retired again the same year.

People with orthostatic intolerance lack a nervous system that adequately moves the blood around their body, so that when they sit or stand for any length of time, blood instead pools in their pelvis or leg regions, causing them to faint.

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For more than a decade, Page suffered embarrassing symptoms that made him worried others might think he was drunk. He often felt disoriented and vague, dizzy when standing upright for long periods and even slurred his words. He sometimes walked into walls and missed his mouth while eating dinner.

“I became almost a social recluse, incapable of communicating at any great level with anyone,” he writes of how it affected him.

“It would exhaust me just to think, let alone talk or walk.

“I wanted to give more attention to this condition, to help people diagnose it and [deal with] the frustration that comes with being misdiagnosed.”

The original Wiggles line-up of Page, Field, Cook and Jeff Fatt were performing on Friday night, the first of two planned fundraisers for the bushfire relief effort.

It was the first time they had appeared onstage together since 2016, when they performed an adults-only 25th-anniversary event as a fundraiser for returned services charity Soldier On.

In an updated statement on Saturday, The Wiggles confirmed their second fundraising show would still go ahead on Saturday night.

“Greg’s main concern was that the show tonight should go on.⁣ Let’s do it for Greg whilst raising much needed funds.”