When would you say is the worst possible time to have a heart attack – while driving? On an airplane? When you’re on your own in a little fishing boat way out in the middle of a lake?
55-year-old British traveller Peter Cousins can make a good case that the worst possible time to have a heart attack is while having sex in the middle of the Nevada desert when you’re a hundred kilometres from the nearest phone signal and 8000 kilometres from the nearest hospital where you could receive subsidized treatment because you don’t have travel insurance.
If you haven’t already guessed, Mr. Cousins is speaking from experience.
He was enjoying a day trip out in the middle of the Nevada desert with two-year-girlfriend Dawn Reed when the couple stumbled across a hot spring. They were out there all alone and the nearest town was a three hour drive away.
Seeing how you couldn’t ask for a more secluded and romantic location, the two of them decided to strip down and jump into the water together for a steamy lovemaking session.
However, things got a little too steamy and Cousins found himself having a heart attack right then and there, halfway through their naughty swim.
Ms. Reed, panicking, ran an impressive five kilometres (it’s a miracle she didn’t have a heart attack too!) to the nearest road, where she was able to flag down a truck and have the driver use his satellite phone to call in a helicopter ambulance.
The helicopter arrived promptly and flew Mr. Cousins straight to the nearest hospital, where doctors managed to save his life by placing a stent in his heart (a stent is sort of like a temporary splint doctors put in a patient’s damaged duct, canal, or blood vessel to help with the healing and remove pressure).
It’s ironic though that after saving Mr. Cousins from dying due to a heart attack, doctors nearly gave him another one five days later when they released him from the hospital and handed him a bill for $300,000.
Not only that, but those five days had only been the initial emergency treatment. Mr. Cousins now had to fly home to Dorset immediately to resume further treatment. Sadly, Ms. Reed chose to stay at the Nevada cowboy ranch where the two of them had been working in the kitchen together.
By this point, most of us would be quite literally heart-broken, but Mr. Cousins remains positive about the experience.
“I will never be able to forget that I owe so much money, but it was worth it for the sex,” he told SWNS (South West News Service, a Bristol-based media company), “it’s always worth it.”
“It was the most expensive ever,” he added. “I haven’t been able to pay it off and although it’s always at the back of my mind, I have no regrets.”
Mr. Cousins is an artist, but since he and Ms. Reed met in Portugal two years ago and commenced a world trip together, he has just been working odd jobs here and there as they move around. The big killer is the fact that he neglected to take out travel insurance, which would have most likely covered his entire medical bill.
“If the hospital decide I do have to pay back the full amount, I’ll never be able to go to America again – that will hurt,” he admitted.
Yes, but will it hurt more than a heart attack, a break-up, and a $300,000 medical bill?