I WRITE about the brilliant NHS system.

Back in January our son had the flu virus that had been going around. On Sunday 15 he had been asleep all day as he felt very off. When he awoke again in the evening about 5pm, he said his heart was racing very fast, he was very dizzy and was sick.

He looked awful so I phoned 111 helpline, the operator was very helpful and asked a few questions but as soon as he said that he was feeling clammy and cold she said she would get an ambulance straight away.

Ten minutes later a First Responder was here, five minutes after that an ambulance and another paramedic arrived, the crew put the heart rate monitor on him and his rate was 283.

He was immediately taken to Colchester General Hospital. The resuscitation team was waiting for him, he had to be shocked to bring his heart rate down and they eventually stabilised him enough to get him up to ICU where he stayed from Sunday night until Tuesday afternoon.

He was then transferred to Acute Cardiac Unit where he stayed for a week.

All the time the hospital was conferring with Basildon Hospital, the major heart hospital in the area, to make sure they were doing all they could for him.

He went to Basildon Hospital on the Monday before he came home to have an MRI scan to make sure no damage had been done to his heart. Thankfully there wasn’t — they concluded it was inflammation round his heart brought on by the virus.

He is doing fine now and has made a good recovery. He has now got a Fitbit that keeps an eye on his heart rate.

We cannot praise everybody involved in the care of him enough, from the 111 operator, ambulance crew, first responders, resuscitation team, ICU team and ACU team.

From the time I phoned 111 to him being admitted to ICU, it took only five hours.

He could not have had better care, even if we had gone private. Colchester General gets a lot of bad press but if not for them, he would have died, so we cannot praise them enough.

Sally Carter

Parker Way

Halstead