Teenager who suffered cardiac arrest while attending a movie with friends in Sydney's CBD thanks paramedics who saved his life

By Ashley Nickel for Daily Mail Australia

16:29 June 2, 2024, updated 16:44 June 2, 2024

A young man who suffered a cardiac arrest near public transport during rush hour in the Sydney CBD has been reunited with the paramedics who saved his life.

Zufi Abdul, 17, had gone to lunch and a movie with friends when he passed out, then thought he had been kidnapped when he woke up to find himself in the back of a ambulance.

The teen privately thanked the three paramedics every night before bed, but had the chance to thank them in person on Sunday.

“Finally meeting these guys today and just saying thank you – even though knowing the word thank you is so short for me and for them – it meant the world,” Mr Abdul told 10 News.

Last year, the 16-year-old collapsed and suffered a sudden cardiac arrest, which is rare for teenagers.

A passerby performed life-saving CPR on Mr Abdul near a CBD tram stop while waiting for hero paramedics to arrive.

'There were probably thousands of people around him in the pouring rain, and we had to get him into the ambulance to be able to do what we needed to do, so the defibrillator could work,” said paramedic Jeremy Beck .

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“Being as young as he is and having such a life ahead of him, it’s pretty fantastic that he’s reaching out to us.”

Mr Abdul was clinically dead for around 10 minutes before paramedics revived him with a defibrillator.

Now he wants to encourage more people to take CPR classes and first aid training as he works to find the stranger who performed CPR on him.

“If you look, I would live to have a cup of tea,” Mr Abdul said.

The Heart Foundation has described sudden cardiac arrest in people under 35 as “very rare”.

“The baseline risk in Australia for people under 35 years of age is 1.3 per 100,000 people per year, with 15 per cent occurring during or immediately after exercise,” it says.

“Across all ages, 20,000 sudden cardiac arrests occur each year in Australia outside of hospital and, unfortunately, only 10% of people survive.

“Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart stops pumping blood around the body, and it can occur due to a heart attack or another cause.”