But it turned out worse than that for Albury’s Tim Farrah.

Working from home alone about 9am on March 31, a normal Friday, Mr Farrah was seized by intense pain in his chest.

“It felt like someone had grabbed my heart and was just wringing it,” he said.

Mr Farrah, 53, had suffered a mild heart attack about 10 years ago and knew the signs.

He called an ambulance and waited for help outside to avoid collapsing in his locked home.

“It was a very long 12 minutes,” he said.

What happened next is testament to the high quality of medical care available on the Border. But what will happen in similar future scenarios shows how that care continues to expand as Albury Wodonga Health gains more of the facilities demanded by its catchment area.

Mr Farrah, a father of three and manager at Australian Industry Group, spent less than 90 minutes in the Albury emergency department – not because all was well.

He had to be rushed to Melbourne for surgery, spending five nights in St Vincent’s Hospital before returning home to recover with wife Anne and children Julia, 17, Elijah, 14, and Simone, 12.

Now a month later he’s back at work, an outcome achieved through both good luck and good management.

In a few years’ time, other Border heart emergency patients won’t have to rely quite so much on the former when Albury Wodonga Health gains its own cardio catheter laboratory or cath lab.

There is already a cath lab at Albury Wodonga Private Hospital, which provides elective, non-emergency services to private patients.

Albury Wodonga Health director of medical services Glenn Davies said cath lab procedures, where a catheter was put into the artery to take pictures and allow interventions like stents, had become best practice in heart attack management.

“It’s been one of the key services that we don’t have in the region (in public hospitals) that would be appropriate to have,” he said.

“Particularly where you have this sort of distance to a capital city lab.”

Dr Davies said the cath lab would be an extension of the present operating suite. Building was likely to start in early June and an elective service begin mid-2018 with 12 months of “gearing up” the necessary staff expertise.

“Our aim ultimately is that we would have an operating emergency after-hours service as well as an in-hours elective service by July 1, 2019,” he said. 

Mr Farrah, also an Albury Wodonga Health board member, is glad other patients might not have to repeat his experience.

Paramedics diagnosed his heart attack during the short trip to hospital, where staff specialist Jay Mueller, clinical nurse educator Chris Maclaine and nurse Elizabeth Troy followed up their work.

“There are two kinds of heart attack,” Dr Mueller said.

“One that you can wait a little while on and treat medically and watch, and the other kind that you can’t and you have to break the clot up quickly; he had the second type.”

Thrombolysis, treatment to dissolve the blockage, does not work for every patient and so it proved for Mr Farrah.

Then, about 25 minutes after arriving in hospital, his heart stopped and staff began resuscitation. 

Mr Farrah remembers being surprised by the strength and energy of the CPR when he was revived a few minutes later.

“I opened my eyes and he made some comment about, ‘Wow, he’s conscious’ and I could see the surprise on his face,” he said.

A transfer to Melbourne was needed, a process that could take about three hours, and Mr Farrah understood the urgency.

“You can read the mood of the room a bit and while the staff were incredibly professional and very calm, I got the sense I was in a bit of strife,” he said.

Fortunately, a Royal Flying Doctor Service aeroplane, with one patient place left, just happened to be at Albury airport already, which sent Mr Farrah on his way sooner than might otherwise have been possible.

Dr Mueller said it was lucky everything had progressed so quickly.

“There were no time delays, no diagnostic uncertainty; the enemy in a heart attack is down time,” he said.

Mr Maclaine said the emergency department team worked together smoothly on the day and being able to increase the treatments available locally through an all-hours cath lab would benefit staff and the community.

“The nearest (emergency) cath lab’s 300 kilometres away so for a family, they’ve got travel distance time, they’ve got days off work, cost of accommodation etc., it’s a stressful situation,” he said.

Albury Wodonga Health chief executive Leigh McJames said the cath lab would be the latest advance made possible by the creation of the amalgamated Border service.

“The regional cancer centre, cath lab, PET scanner – all are a direct result of the vision that a few people had to bring those two health services together,” Mr McJames said.

“This is delivering real improvements, tangible improvements, life-saving improvements for the community because we have this cross-border arrangement.”

Mr Farrah joined the Albury Wodonga Health board three years ago, wanting to help develop an important service.

And now he’s even more keen to make sure the lives of other heart attack patients don’t hang on the usual three-hour transfer time being reduced by sheer chance.

“It probably would have been the end of me, I don’t think I was going to last that long,” Mr Farrah said.​