A Rhondda man has suffered a stroke while at his local training club, days after securing silver medals at a Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu competition in Rome. His coach said his team took him to the Royal Glamorgan Hospital straight away, after being told an ambulance would take seven hours to reach him.
Gavin ‘ Iggy ‘ Thomas, 40, from Clydach Vale, fell ill while he training at G7 BJJ Academy on Monday, November 14. Around 7.50pm, his training partner noticed that he didn't look very well - his coach, also called Gavin Thomas, aged 43, said that he "all of a sudden looked drunk" and his mouth had dropped.
He added: "We got him to a room and the ambulance said it would take them seven hours to get here and the hospital was down the road, so we carried him down the stairs, got him in the car and just got him down there as quick as possible." At the hospital, Gavin, known as Iggy, faced further complications and had to undergo surgery, but was currently stable according to his coach. You can get more Rhondda news and other story updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to our newsletters here.
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He said Gavin had been complaining of migraines for months but that, "he's a solider and just carried on." He added: "Gavin lives alone so it was lucky he was with us at the gym. Although we have WhatsApp groups he never comments on them so we wouldn't have realised anything was wrong if it happened in his house and you hadn't heard from him - God knows what would have happened."
He described Gavin as "one of the boys and a fantastic father to his little girl." He added: "He's one of my best students, but more than that he's my mate. We're all like a family." Gavin said the gym wanted to do something to help, so he decided to set up a GoFundMe to help support Mr Thomas, who is a dry-liner and ceiling fixer.
He said: "This GoFundMe business is all new to me and I didn't know how to set up a page before this. I made it so it would go directly to Gavin. It doesn't change what's happened and no amount of money will, but it will hopefully help." Gavin set the target at £1,000 but it has reached over £11,000 in under 24 hours. He said the response from the community had been amazing as "everyone loves Gavin" and wished him a speedy recovery.
Gavin added that it was not the news he originally planned on sharing, as 48 hours before the incident, his friend made it to the European Nogi IBJJF finals in Rome, securing two silver medals along the way. However, he said he was "happy he was able to do something". If you would like to donate to Gavin's GoFundMe page, you can visit it here.
Lee Brooks, executive director of operations at the Welsh Ambulance Service, said: “Emergency ambulances are to deliver life-saving immediate care and to take patients promptly to hospital for treatment, so it’s as frustrating for us as it is for patients when we can’t deliver that part of our service.
“The average response time for a life-threatening ‘Red’ call in October was 10 minutes. While we didn’t meet the target, we did get to more patients in eight minutes compared to October 2021, when there was 10% less Red demand. Hospital handover delays remain the single biggest reason we cannot get to some patients promptly.
“In October, we lost almost 29,000 hours to handover delays across Wales; the equivalent of more than a third of our capacity for the entire month. Despite record recruitment, including the creation of 400 extra posts in our Emergency Medical Service in the last three years, it is not enough to plug this lost capacity.
“We continue to do what we can to alleviate pressure by treating and triaging more patients over the telephone and in the community and referring them to other parts of the NHS, beyond the Emergency Department. A new roster system will ensure that our finite resources are better aligned to demand, now and in the future, and we are working hard to see up to 100 additional frontline workers operational from late January. In anticipation of a really difficult winter, the public can help by only calling 999 in a serious or life-threatening emergency – help protect our precious resources for those who need us most.”
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