A super fit man who regularly takes part in triathlons has miraculously survived after contracting a heart-attacking virus on his honeymoon and dying six times.
Andrew Britton is now waiting for a heart transplant after spending nine months in three different hospitals and suffering cardiac failure six times.
The 33-year-old, who enjoys running and playing squash, collapsed hours after arriving in the Maldives for his honeymoon.Just five days after his dream wedding to wife Lauren he had been transferred to a larger hospital in Bangkok, Thailand,
where he was put on a life support machine.After the wedding they boarded the plane for their honeymoon on the Kandooma Island in The Maldives, but on the flight he started to feel ill with flu-like symptoms.The couple called the island doctor out and Andrew was put on a drip in his hut as he couldn’t keep any liquids down.
He was put on a heart rate monitor, which showed 200 beats a minute. He was sedated and given defibrillation shocks to force his heart back to a normal rhythm.
Doctors did not yet realise it, but Andrew had developed myocarditis, a viral infection that leads to inflammation and damage to the heart.
The majority of cases clear up within a week, but sometimes the inflammation in the heart lasts longer and cause serious, life-threatening problems.
He was flown there on an emergency medical jet and remained on life support for two weeks and in the hospital for a total of six weeks.
Andrew’s other organs started failing as the doctors worked out which drugs to put him on and they drained 11 litres of fluid from his body when his kidneys stopped working.
Eventually he was stable enough to get another medical flight home and was taken to Harefield Hospital in London.
They fitted a Cardiac Resynchronisation Therapy Defibrillator device to help pace his heart and within 48 hours he felt much better.
'I was eventually able to leave the hospital and I was at home for seven weeks, but I suddenly collapsed at Tesco and was taken back to hospital,' he said.
This time Andrew had eight hours of open heart surgery and was fitted with a left ventricular device, pumps blood through the heart.
He is now stable and in hospital, awaiting a heart transplant.
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