A teenager who felt “helpless” as she overheard her family’s frantic cries on the phone as her grandmother suffered a cardiac arrest says she is now determined to help save lives as a volunteer with St John Ambulance. While studying for her school exams last year, Zehra Azim, 19, was with her mother, architect Sakina Naqvi, 44, when they received a devastating call that her grandmother, Syeda Sultana Naqvi, 72, had gone into cardiac arrest.
Unable to get to her aunt’s house – where her grandmother was staying – Zehra, who now lives in Mile End, London, and her mother could only listen to the “chaos” unfolding before an ambulance arrived and took her grandmother to hospital. Tragically, Syeda – who was known to her family as Sultana – died two days later, on March 21 2021.
Moving to London from New Delhi in India a few months later, while still grieving for her beloved grandmother, biomedical student Zehra felt determined to educate herself and help others by volunteering with the first aid charity St John Ambulance. Zehra said: “If I had known what to do that night, I could have told my family how to help my grandmother and they might have saved her life.
“I don’t want anybody else to feel the way I did that night and go through that again. Now, if something happens to someone, I could save their life.”
And in the run-up to Restart a Heart Day on October 16, which aims to raise awareness of CPR, Zehra hopes she can help educate the South Asian communities in particular – with first generation South Asians up to 50% more likely to have coronary heart disease than the UK’s white European population, according to the British Heart Foundation.
Zehra said: “Everybody needs to know basic first aid but especially South Asian people, because many of them are more at risk and may be unaware. It is so important we teach first aid in their own language, like Urdu, so they are educated on how to perform CPR.”
Prior to Zehra’s grandmother’s cardiac arrest, there had been no warning signs. Zehra, who was living in New Delhi at the time, said: “On the day it happened, she was completely fine. There hadn’t been anything wrong. She phoned me earlier in the day, while I was studying for my exams, so we didn’t speak long because I needed to focus.
“I didn’t realise that was the last time we would speak.”
It was around 11pm that night when the family were called and told that her grandmother had gone into cardiac arrest. “My mum isn’t able to drive and public transport just isn’t an option where we live because it’s not safe at night, so there was no way for us to get there,” Zehra said.
“My uncle tried to do CPR but he wasn’t sure if he was doing it right. We could just hear my uncle and auntie arguing and trying to decide what to do because they were so worried and confused. I couldn’t believe what was happening. I felt so helpless.”
Zehra visited her grandmother’s bedside in hospital the next day but, despite doctors’ best efforts, she tragically could not be saved. With little time to digest her grandmother’s death, as part of Islamic tradition Zehra and her family attended her funeral on the day she died.
She said: “It was devastating. I was the first grandchild in my family so I was always really close to my grandmother and have always been very pampered.”
Zehra added: “She would always cook for me her favourite dishes like chicken curry and fries and she would teach me about her religion.”
Seven months later, Zehra moved to London – but could not shake the feeling that she wanted to do more. She said: “I had such limited knowledge of first aid and I thought, if I don’t know anything about it, how will I influence others?
“I wanted to learn myself first, so joined a St John Ambulance four-week training course as a volunteer in February 2022 and I learned so much. ”
In between her studies, operational first aider Zehra volunteered during the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June as well as during football matches and school events. And she has even put her new first aid skills to use.
“When I was visiting India in June this summer, it was 45C and I was at a dinner party, where a man looked like he was passing out,” she said. “I checked his pulse and breathing and realised he was dehydrated so made someone get him a rehydration salt pack, which gives you glucose for energy, and within 10 minutes he seemed better again.”
While Zehra is keen to stick with St John Ambulance, she hopes to one day work in a hospital as a clinical scientist. But for now she hopes her experience can encourage people from the South Asian community to learn basic first aid.
She said: “I am a young teenager who is a good student and passionate about education but I still had no idea what to do that day. There are so many people out there who do not know what CPR is, and often our communities are the ones most at risk because our lifestyles and dietary habits are not the healthiest, which could mean things like high cholesterol, heart issues and diabetes.”
Zehra added: “We need to raise awareness so people know what to do in these situations so we don’t lose more lives. Now I know one day I might be able to save a life.”
For more information about St John Ambulance’s Urdu resources, go to: www.sja.org.uk/urdu
