A pub owner who suffered five heart attacks on his birthday while holidaying in Greece is “lucky to be alive” but is now bedridden at a hospital in the country weeks later. He will “hopefully be flying home in three days” according to his wife.
Patrick “Patch” Kettleborough, 38, from Bolsover near Chesterfield, has not been able to return to the UK since he suffered two major and three small heart attacks less than a day after arriving in Malia, Crete, on Friday, September 23. Patch’s wife Lisa Kettleborough, 40, said she feared her husband of 18 years would die after he experienced severe chest pains that Saturday morning when they had breakfast with two friends.
The couple, who manage the Blue Bell pub in Bolsover, travelled to Greece as a surprise to celebrate Patch’s 38th birthday, but Lisa said the holiday she planned quickly turned into an “absolutely heart-breaking” situation. Their children Jamie, 15, and Lily, 16, have since travelled to the country to see their father in hospital – but the couple are still stuck in Greece, unable to work, and are calling on the public for financial help.
“The whole situation is absolutely heart-breaking,” Lisa said. “When they were rushing around getting him into the ambulance, I was afraid he was going to die. It was very scary, but he’s made it. I’m just so proud of him.”
Lisa and Patch arrived on the afternoon of Friday, September 23, and went to get some drinks with their friends. The next day, Patch’s 38th birthday, Lisa noticed some unusual behaviour in her partner.
She said: “From the get-go on Saturday morning, Patch hadn’t been himself and on a couple of instances, felt quite a severe pain in his chest. At that point, I decided that I was going to put my foot down and take him to the medical centre. When I walked in, I still thought it was an anxiety attack.”
Lisa added: “They took him straight into a room and I was told to fill out the insurance papers. A nurse came out and spoke to me in Greek, but I knew something was wrong by the way she acted. I screamed down the corridor, ‘It’s a heart attack’.”
Her partner was put in the back of an ambulance and taken to a hospital in a nearby city, only to be transferred to another specialist hospital, the University Hospital in Heraklion, where he had a stent fitted into his heart. A stent, which is a short, wire-mesh tube that acts like a scaffold to help keep an artery open, according to NHS Inform, was needed because Patch’s arteries were “pretty much closed”.
Lisa said: “The stent fitting went very well. They told me he had two heart attacks and about three small ones, as one artery was about 90 per cent and the other 60 per cent blocked. The doctors said they didn’t really know how he survived and he was very lucky he was alive.”
After his stent operation, Patch was taken straight to intensive care. Despite not being able to see him for two days, his wife travelled to the hospital every day from her hotel, an hour away.
She said: “I just sat outside intensive care, so he knew I wasn’t far and if anything happened I’d be right there. I didn’t want to be there and I never wanted anything tragic to happen. I made arrangements for my mother-in-law and my children to fly over, because I didn’t know what the outcome was going to be.”
Only on the third day of Patch’s hospital admission, on Tuesday, September 27, was Lisa allowed to see him because of his poor health and being at high risk of infection. She said: “I was allowed in for five minutes, but I had to wear a mask as well as an apron and I wasn’t allowed to touch him.”
Lisa added: “There were leads all over him, but he was talking to me. It was quite distressing, very upsetting to see and he didn’t look very well in intensive care as he was hooked up to all the machines. It was really hard to see.”
Once their children Jamie and Lily arrived on September 27, they were allowed to see their dad for 15 minutes each.
“There’s no words to describe how it felt when our kids got to see him,” said Lisa. "I’m not a religious person, but I prayed to God a few times to keep him alive. I’m just so grateful.
“I had to be strong for the kids, but after they were gone I just cried and cried.”
After his initial hospital admission, Lisa said Patch got “a little bit better” each day and was allowed to return to their hotel on Friday, September 30 – the same day his children returned home to the UK – under the condition that he must wear a heart monitor and get his blood pressure checked three times a day. Unfortunately, Patch didn’t get to stay in the hotel for long.
The couple’s hopes of flying home to England were crushed when he was taken to hospital again on Thursday, October 6, 13 days after his quintuple heart attack in what Lisa calls a “funny turn” after Patch’s condition worsened.
Patch, who also has two older children from a previous relationship, was scared and worried that he wasn’t able to go home, according to his wife. Currently, the couple are still stuck in Greece, but are hopeful they will fly out soon.
Lisa said: “Patch was scared about what the upcoming flight would be like, but we are keen to get home. We’ve spoken to the GP at home and once we have landed, we are pencilled in for a GP call to tell us what we need to do once we arrive.”
Once they are back in the UK, Lisa hopes she and Patch will get some answers about what caused his heart attacks. “We think that he has some kind of congenital heart disease, but after the initial problem is fixed, they need to do proper inquiries into what caused it,” Lisa said.
There were no indicators of heart problems leading up to Patch’s heart attacks, according to his wife. She said: “It’s just completely random, it feels like. He was absolutely fine before, there were no signs this was going to happen.
“We’re both really concerned it will happen again when we’re at home, so we are very keen to get it sorted.”
The surprise birthday present turned horror trip prevents the couple from returning home to their children and also returning to work managing the Blue Bell. Lisa said: “We both do a lot of hours and 100% of our wages are now gone.
“We hope raising some money for extra expenses here in Greece and covering our wages until we can go back to work will make life easier.”
In addition to their two children, who are currently staying with Patch’s mum, the couple has two dogs, who Lisa said her husband “absolutely adores” and have to be cared for while they are in Greece. To donate to the couple’s fundraiser, visit: www.gofundme.com/f/patchs-quick-fix-to-get-him-home/
