David Frost may never have played pickleball again.
During one match at his local leisure centre in Surrey in March 2024, he suffered a cardiac arrest, and only the prompt attention of the centre staff and then the medical team saved his life.
Now he is back on court – and even winning medals.
“I definitely was inspired by knowing several pickleball players who had pacemakers and defibrillators in their bodies already, [people] who had gone through this,” he tells Pickleball 52. “So it’s always good to hopefully inspire other people that you can just get on with it – even after a cardiac arrest.”
Unsurprisingly, he remembers very little of the incident.
“I was just playing, and then the next thing I can remember [fully] is being in A&E in St Helier Hospital. It’s a bit like just remembering clips from film.
“Apparently when the ambulance crew got to the leisure centre, I was talking. They could ask me where I was, I knew where I was and so on, but the memories of talking to them and so on have just never come back at all. That’s all just completely blank.”
David had felt unwell with pain similar to indigestion in the days leading up to the cardiac arrest, and was due to see his GP the day afterwards.
“The first thing I thought when I woke up was, ‘Oh, that was stupid. You shouldn’t have been playing pickleball while your chest was hurting.'”
His next thought was of the other players he knew who had pacemakers or defibrillators and were still enjoying their sport: “‘I know I can get back and play,’ so that was good.”
The leisure centre staff, John Bennett, Stephanie Wallace, Cai Oudijk and Leo Gamble, were later honoured by the South East Coast Ambulance Service for their quick thinking which saved David’s life.
“I was able to attend my granddaughter’s first birthday, which was weight days after the arrest – it really hammered home how much I owe the Tadworth first aiders and the NHS!” he says.
Now with two stents and an internal defibrillator implant, he plays two or three times a week, and is back entering tournaments.
“I won a genuine bronze medal in June 25 – a year and three months after the actual event,” he says, adding that he also partnered Pam Ansell to a medal at a Pickleball UK tournament in Buckinghamshire in the autumn.
“I do start to feel that everything slows down a little bit through each new year that I live through,” he adds wryly, pointing out that he is now 67 years of age, “but I’m still playing!”
