Joshua Gul’s cruise ship miracle – CPR on Carnival Encounter saved his life

• Joshua Gul suffered a cardiac arrest while at sea and survived thanks to a cruise ship miracle.
• Gul received onboard treatment before being rushed to a hospital on shore, medically evacuated to another hospital and then woke up after five days in an induced coma.
• The hospital in Mackay and Gul’s wife Nancy both credit the cruise ship medical team with saving his life.

If it wasn’t for a cruise ship miracle, Joshua Gul, a 55-year old Buderim man, wouldn’t be alive today.

He was enjoying what should have been a relaxing cruise out of Brisbane, when things took a disastrous turn.

Gul was aboard the Carnival Encounter, sailing out of Brisbane, sailing with a 16 family members to celebrate his dads 80th birthday. 

On just the second day of the cruise, Gul woke early in the morning with intense pain in his left hand and arm, that continued to become more and more painful.

His wife Nancy explains how dire the situation was, and how quickly the medical team acted: “Thankfully, they quickly rang the onboard medical team who arrived at our cabin within five minutes.

“When the doctor and nurses arrived, he was already unconscious and had gone into cardiac arrest – they had to start resuscitation immediately; it all happened so fast.”

In what they described as a “terrifying ordeal”, Nancy and their 16-year old daughter had to watch on as the medical team performed 30 minutes of CPR.

The saga didn’t stop there. The medical team expertly completed an emergency transfer, in which Gul was taken off the cruise ship, placed into a shuttle boat and taken to shore, where he was brought to Proserpine Hospital.

He was then medically evacuated by rescue helicopter and taken to Mackay Base Hospital, where he was instantly transferred to the Intensive Care Unit.

After five days in an induced coma, Gul woke up. Amazingly, he now appears to be in good health, escaping the incident without serious damage to his brain.

Mackay Base Hospital ICU director Stephen Luke says the swift medical attention from the doctors on the cruise is why Gul is still alive today.

Luke said: “CPR and defibrillation on the cruise ship truly saved his life.

“This is the chain of survival at work, with the added challenges of retrieval off the cruise ship and distance in North Queensland.

“We were all really excited to see Josh wake up without serious damage to his brain. We’re also very fortunate to have such a great partnership with our cardiologists here in Mackay.” 

Nancy even mentioned that if they hadn’t been on a cruise ship, which has a fast and capable medical team, Gul might not have made it.

“Joshua was very lucky in what was an incredibly unlucky situation for us.\

“If this cardiac episode had happened at home and not on the cruise ship in the Whitsundays, Joshua wouldn’t have had such rapid access to care like he did, and he probably wouldn’t have made it.”

As far as Gul goes, he says he could well be back on a cruise ship soon, after more medical care and recovery. 

“I’ll be back though; I was having a great time on the ship … but I was on a shuttle boat, had my first ride in a helicopter as well as an ambulance trip – and I missed all of it as I was unconscious.”