In a quiet London living room during the bleakness of the third Covid lockdown, a family's ordinary evening took a catastrophic turn. For former music industry lawyer Patrick Charnley, a heart attack on 1 February 2021 stopped his heart for a staggering 40 minutes, plunging him into a coma and setting him on an unforeseen path to a new career as a novelist.
A Sudden Arrest and a Long Road Back
Sitting with his wife Alexa for a simple meal of sausages and chips, Patrick began making strange noises. Alexa, aware of his known heart valve issue, immediately recognised it was cardiac arrest. Thanks to swift CPR from a neighbour and paramedics, his heart was restarted, but he was clinically dead for those long minutes before reaching hospital.
While Alexa endured a waking nightmare, Patrick lay in a deep coma. When he awoke days later, he was blind, confused, and suffering a significant brain injury from oxygen deprivation. Medical tests later revealed his memory and cognitive function were in the bottom 2% of the population. He had no recollection of his mother's death three years prior and couldn't comprehend the snow covering Hampstead Heath outside his window.
Visions of Peace: The Hallucinations That Built a Book
During his recovery, Patrick experienced intense, comforting hallucinations as his brain tried to compensate for his lost sight. One, in particular, became the seed for his novel, This, My Second Life. He vividly recalls a scene in a past-era Dublin cottage hospital, feeling utterly safe and cared for by softly murmuring nurses.
"I felt so looked after, like nothing could possibly hurt me," he recounts, linking the vision to the extreme kindness shown by real NHS staff. This period stripped away the stress of his former life, leaving him with a profound sense of peace and contentment he describes as being "like a baby with a belly full of milk."
Forging a New Path with Pen and Paper
Determined to hold onto this transformative feeling after returning home visually impaired, Patrick began to write. Hampered by dyslexia, brain injury fatigue, and poor memory, he wrote slowly by hand, crafting a sanctuary on the page. Over three years, the novel took shape, becoming a bridge to the work of his late mother, acclaimed writer Helen Dunmore.
He incorporated characters from her stories, weaving a thread between their creative worlds. Finishing the manuscript was one thing; sending it to publishers was a courageous step back into a world he had left behind. Securing a deal with Hutchinson Heinemann felt like a definitive new beginning.
Patrick Charnley's life is now undeniably different, marked by limitations but also by a newfound freedom and clarity. "I have a lot of problems," he states, "but I am alive, I can see, I have my family and friends, and I can write." His greatest hope is that his novel passes on the profound sense of peace and possibility that his second life has given him.
