By Jesse Graham
IT WAS a symptom that many people would overlook or brush off that caught former-mayor Jason Callanan’s attention at the end of August and prompted him to action.
Mr Callanan, who is a paramedic, said that he felt chest pain while in his office at the Yarra Ranges Council offices in Lilydale, and quickly called an ambulance for himself.
“The chest pain was very different to what I’d felt previously and was quite severe, so I thought I should get it checked out,” he said.
“I was at the office and I pretty much stepped out, without letting anybody know.
“It just happened very suddenly.”
Paramedics in the ambulance could not find anything abnormal on the heart monitor, and took him to Box Hill Hospital, meeting up with MICA (Mobile Intensive Care Ambulance) along the way.
After arriving, he was told he had an aortic dissection – where a tear in the aorta results in blood flowing between the layers of the aortic wall, forcing them apart.
Aortic dissections can cause severe chest or back pain, which was the symptom Mr Callanan noticed, and can lead to death due to lack of blood flow to the heart or a ruptured aorta.
Mr Callanan was then transferred to the Austin Hospital, where he underwent 11 hours of surgery and spent four weeks recovering in intensive care, before being transferred to the Angliss Hospital for rehabilitation.
“I needed to learn to walk again,” Mr Callanan said.
“I lost over 20 kilograms … I ended up having to learn how to do a lot of things that we all take for granted.”
Speaking to the Mail on Thursday 24 November, Mr Callanan said he had been discharged a week early and was recovering at home with his family and medication for his heart.
“I’m on a walker, but I’m going to rehab at the Angliss to work on that, and I also do a cardio rehab as well – just to help me with exercise,” he said.
“From family, through to work, especially with the ambulance, as well as council, they’ve all been very, very supportive, and bent over backwards to accommodate anything that I’ve asked for.”
Though Mr Callanan had planned to recontest his seat of Chandler for this year’s council elections, his sudden stay in hospital meant he was not able to formally nominate for the election in person at Healesville.
“I was intending to run and … was getting material ready, but, unfortunately, it just happened,” he said.
His four years in council, and recent year in the mayor’s role, was acknowledged by new mayor Noel Cliff in his speech to councillors on 8 November.
“It’s something you wouldn’t wish on anyone, and he was doing a hell of a good job,” Cr Cliff said, adding that he and the council wished Mr Callanan a speedy recovery.
From here, Mr Callanan has six months of rehabilitation ahead before getting back into his work with Ambulance Victoria.
“My recovery is the most important thing,” he said.
“Family is something that I want to … spend more time with, and so they’re the two most important things for me at the moment.
“I will keep in touch with council, because I’ve made some good friends there, and also, when I’m more active, I guess I’ll be out in the community a bit more.”
Come 2020, Mr Callanan said he would step back into the ring and run for the Chandler Ward, which was won by new councillor Tony Stevenson in this year’s election.
“I will be running for council in four years. I will.”
