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Former Fitzroy star Jason Baldwin’s fight to survive after massive heart attack
Jon Anderson - Herald Sun - September 7th 2024Three months ago former Fitzroy footballer Jason Baldwin was celebrating the 21st birthday of his daughter Abbey (on June 16th) as a healthy enough 54-year-old scaffolder with a love of family, fishing, sport and his pair of Cavoodle dogs. Today he lies in hospital, his home the past three months after a massive heart attack the day after Abbey’s party.
Baldwin, who played 125 games with Fitzroy from 1989-96 and two for Richmond in 1997, had no reason to suspect he was a heart attack victim after a regular check-up last year cleared him of any warning signs.
“Our daughter Abbey is a nursing student so luckily she was able to perform CPR until the ambos arrived and then they worked for something like 50 minutes. They say normally 40 minutes of CPR is maximum without having some sort of brain function issues. Somehow all my CT scans and MRIs have come out normal” Originally I was given a one per cent chance of survival, but after I kept living they were saying there would be brain damage. Then after my coma for five weeks they were saying there was a five per cent chance of survival.
Baldwin has been visited by many of his ex-teammates, and over the past three months including Matthew Armstrong, Frank Bizzotto, Michael Gale, Jimmy Wynd, Ashley Matthews, Mark Zanotti, Brett Chandler, Brett Stephens, Ross Lyon, Paul Roos (by phone from Hawaii), Darren “Doc” Wheildon, Richard Osborne, Robert Shaw, Brett Cook, Martin Pike and Tom Kavanagh.
Jason and former teammates Martin Pike, Mark Zanotti and Brett Chandler
One of those players, Brett Chandler, is a direct beneficiary of Baldwin’s heart attack “After my heart attack a number of boys have had calcium scores and heart checks, where Brett was found to have a 90 per cent blockage, plus four boys from where I work at Central Scaffolding (Dandenong) for my great mate Brett Fisher, were found with blockages and had stents put in.
“I played at 78kg and was around 80kg in June, I got down to 60kg and I’m now 66kg. They cut out a couple of metres of my small intestine which will require another operation in about six months when I get healthier. I’ve got some solid rehab ahead of me.
“Because I was actually dead for a period after my heart attack, people ask you is there anything on the other side. To be honest I had a memory of cooking toast for breakfast with a mate who lives in Thailand, and obviously I wasn’t there.”
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