A Victorian paramedic working alone at a rural station realised he could be having a heart attack so he drove himself to hospital in his own ambulance.
David Watson, who's been a paramedic for more than two decades, was working solo in the small western Victorian town of Casterton when he felt the "tell-tale signs of having some kind of cardiac event".
He was about the embark on a work-out when he felt a sharp pain in his chest, tingles down the arms and started sweating profusely.
"I went inside and grabbed the heart monitor and found that I was in an abnormal rhythm, which rang alarm bells," Mr Watson told reporters on Tuesday.
"So I took myself in the ambulance 100 metres around the corner to Casterton hospital and rang their doorbell."
He said every minute is crucial to save the heart muscle.
The MICA paramedics from Hamilton then arrived at the tiny rural hospital and took over, administering clot busting medication and getting the air ambulance to fly him to Geelong.
Once then helicopter landed, Mr Watson says he was into surgery within eight minutes to clear the clot and fit a stent.
After the surgery, the doctor told him how close he'd come to death in the rural ambulance station.
"He said 'it's amazing you're alive' because the clot was in one of my large coronary arteries," he said.
His wife, Nicole, said she'd be stepping in to make big changes to his lifestyle, despite him being fit and healthy before the attack.
"Everything in the pantry has been thrown out (if it had) sugar in it. The beer's about to be thrown out too. I'm getting tougher on that for sure," Ms Watson said.
He advised anyone suffering similar symptoms to call triple-zero immediately and not attempt to drive to hospital.
The Torquay man won't be back at work for at least two months as he recovers.
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