A man who suffered three heart attacks by the age of 30 says taking up jiujitsu saved his life.
Ciarán Byrne had to have two stents inserted into his heart after suffering a series of mini heart attacks and three major ones.
He told Lunchtime Live the signs were there for years, but he was misdiagnosed.
"There's no family history whatsoever, I'm the only one to ever have any kind of heart issue.
"That's the major thing about the whole thing: the doctors just can't understand what happened".
He said all his brothers have since got tested, and came back clear.
"It's just one of them things, that's all they can say, it's just crazy."
He said it began back when he was 22 and he started to lose some vision.
"Looking back now, it was just down to a lack of oxygen and blood going to my brain and to my eyes".
He said he went to hospital when he was in Canada in 2016, and was diagnosed as having anxiety. But he said it just kept getting worse and worse.
"One night I just came home from work and I just said to Nicola 'I just really don't feel great'.
"I was going blind in the van on the way home and my chest was just really sore.
"The only way I can really and honestly describe it is as if the Hulk was standing on my chest, just pressing all his pressure on me".
He said he had a sudden rush of numbness from his head to his toes.
"They say that I was having mini heart attacks for a long time, and then I had three major ones - my left coronary artery was 90% blocked.
"The doctors were saying to me that I was a walking timebomb, I could have just dropped dead at any second".
Ciarán said a "tiny blip" showed up on his ECG, but they were still unsure exactly what was wrong.
"They ended up bringing me in for the angiogram then in Waterford and just took it from there".
'Jiujitsu helped me breathe'
Ciarán said he was conscious when his stents were put in place.
"It wasn't as if it was sore or anything, you could just feel this inflation inside in your heart - it was a weird, weird sensation".
"When they put the stents in you could feel it, and you could feel the sensation of 'Wow, I can feel the blood'.
"Afterwards you're more breathless but yet you've got more blood flowing through your body and more oxygen flowing through your body but yet you're more prone to be breathless".
Ciarán said jiujitsu helped him with his breathing.
"Jiujitsu kind of saved my life... because with jiujitsu you're in bad positions all the time and if you don't breathe you're dead - as in you're submitted or unconscious"
"So throughout the whole lot of what happened, I would say that jiujitsu helped me breathe - and that's what made me stay alive was knowing how to breathe in difficult situations".
5K run
Ciarán is now getting ready to run a 5K, 'The Love Run' on Valentine’s Day, in aid of the Irish Heart Foundation.
"Without the nurses and the support network on Facebook, and the gathering and the groups of people that you encounter, it's brilliant.
"But without the help, that network doesn't exist and that network can be very easy to go to".
"You go and you get in touch with somebody that's going through the same problems, and you try and talk with people about how you're feeling.
"To see is it normal - 'Do I need to go to the hospital?' - it's a really vital thing to have there".
