If you were at the British IRC for the early races last year, you’ll probably remember the worrying scenes when one of the competitors suffered a heart attack while racing. Fortunately, a tragedy was avoided by the prompt actions of the event’s medical staff. A year on, we’ve caught up with Nigel Stevenson to see how he’s doing.

At the age of 61, Nigel classifies himself as “semi-retired”. A former cargo handler at Heathrow Airport, he’s always had an interest in sport and exercise. “I enjoy swimming, cycling and running and playing things such as squash. I’ve also run a few marathons and taken part in triathlons.”

Nigel, who lives in Twickenham, went to university in 2000 before starting a job in a gym. "It was there that I first used the Indoor Rower. Shortly after that I discovered the Concept2 website. I started off just reading the articles and the coaching tips but soon got signed up for the Online Ranking and Logbook and got hooked on entering my metres and taking part in the challenges. I found the Logbook a very good motivational tool to keep me going."

By this point Nigel had taken up dragon boat racing, so the Indoor Rower had become a more relevant part of his workout and he started to spend more time on it. When the dragon boat season ended, he decided that now was a good time to finally enter the British IRC.

"On the day itself I had a great time," said Nigel. "I got there nice and early as I was competing in the second race of the day. I had a good chat with the race scrutineer and got on my machine. I was aiming to go under eight minutes. Soon after the start however, I felt ill so I stopped. The next thing I knew I was in Birmingham hospital."

Nigel had suffered a heart attack and at one point his heart stopped beating. The swift intervention of the medical staff on the day was able to get it restarted. It was later diagnosed that the "short circuit" was a result of medication Nigel was taking and, as it could have happened anytime, it was lucky that it happened where it did with support services in place.

Nigel spent four nights in hospital. Since then he’s made a steady recovery and within three or four weeks he was back training on the machine. "I train solely on heart rate nowadays. I keep my heart rate between 65 and 80% of my maximum heart rate and never let it get above 128."

Nigel has also had a defibrillator fitted to help prevent any occurrences. "I’ve had to give up some things like dragon boat racing and doing a flat-out 2,000m piece, but overall things have gone back to normal for me. I’m really grateful for all the work that the Concept2 staff and the medical service did for me. They contributed greatly to helping save my life. Without their prompt actions, things could have turned out very differently."