Yellow Wiggle and Westmead Hospital Cardiologist team up to save Australian lives

When former yellow Wiggle, Greg Page, suffered a sudden cardiac arrest in January 2020 during The Wiggles’ charity concert at Castle Hill RSL, it was an off-duty nurse who saved his life through CPR and the use of a nearby AED (automated external defibrillator).
He was urgently transferred to Westmead Hospital, where Senior Staff Specialist Cardiologist Professor Pramesh Kovoor and the Cath Lab team inserted a stent into his coronary artery to essentially avoid any damage to the Wiggles’ heart muscle.
Greg is one of the lucky ones; only 10 per cent of people in Australia survive a sudden cardiac arrest.
Westmead Hospital Head of Cardiology, Professor Robert Dennis joined Greg Page on The Morning Show in late June 2023 to raise awareness of sudden cardiac arrest, of which 90% do not survive.
"Cardiac arrests need to be treated promptly with CPR because the brain starts to die within four minutes, and after about eight minutes, the outlook for survival is very poor," said Prof Dennis.
"It's vital to get CPR on board as soon as possible and then defibrillation as soon as possible to improve the 9% survival rate."
If people receive immediate care with CPR followed by effective use of AED, their survival rates in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest can significantly improve, increasing to about 70%.