Tauranga man Max Christoffersen was forced to come to grips with his own mortality while on his way to a rugby game.

He shares his experience below.

Discovering your mortality is a bitch.

It happened on the way to The Chiefs vs Crusaders semi-final.

It wasn't the game that gave me the heart attack, it was the short walk to the stadium that did.

Near breathless and feeling worse for wear and tear before the game even started, the prospect of the short walk back to the car after the game was beginning to make the obvious suddenly clear; I was in trouble.

While the perished health-centred purists of the male species would likely say if you have a heart attack you don't survive it, the truth is they come in all shapes and sizes, like the equivalent of human earthquakes, ranging from small tremors to major shocks on the Richter scale.

Mine was a small tremor but enough to evoke the fear of what just happened and then the uneasy wait for what might follow if the aftershocks didn't immediately subside.

Fearful of the major shake to come, I arranged a visit to the doctor in the vain hope of taking some pills to fix the tremors and a good telling off for allowing my blood pressure to go past 200.

Instead I was dispatched immediately to A&E for coronary care and considerably more than a slap on the wrist and an engaging lecture about what I now know as ‘myocardial infarction' – a heart attack.

To know I was now in the care of strangers was both frightening and uplifting. The signs on the walls asked people not to hurt the staff who were there to help. I wondered what country I now lived in that had to ask its sick and injured not to punch the nurses.

The women who took care of me are the hidden heroes in our society. They are the people who care when stupid men like me allow other low-key priorities take over, instead of managing their own health.

All thoroughly professional in their approach, they also managed to be personal and caring, from the nurses who prodded and poked with needles and new science fiction style medical devices to the staff who brought tea and wheelchairs.

They all managed the personal touch while I knew there were dozens and likely hundreds of other patients under their care.

They shared their home stories of life outside the hospital walls and the politics within. They shared their expertise and their knowledge, their professional advice and their concern for a stranger they hopefully will never meet again.

I left hospital knowing that those who should be recognized in the New Year's Honors lists are those in the medical profession who are so often ignored – until like me, we suddenly need them.

While businessmen and sportsmen may reap the public kudos, they too some day will find themselves in the hands of nurses and doctors who will reassure and comfort, advise and fix, educate and ‘dust-off' and do so without any hope of public recognition that is so deserved.

As I return to life after treatment armed with pills and potions I'm aware that most Kiwi men know more about their car engine than their human one.

I was among those who previously didn't know that my body had been in daily discussion with me for some time. I had simply ignored my built-in speedo and rev counter dials that were red-lining 24/7.

They were attempting to tell me urgently that parts of my engine were under considerable strain. The human cambelt was ready to snap.

It was a walk to the park that made me listen. Just as The Chiefs did on that night, I too dodged a bullet. Mine was likely to be more lasting, but the message has been delivered with the same piercing power and unstoppable force as the Lelia Masagatry on that night.

I too now have to marshal the troops, come up with a game plan and have a second half fight back that shows that I live to fight another day.

Writing about it to share the fear with others is one way of overcoming the realisation that I too will die and I may have come close on that night in the neighborhood where I grew up.

But today I live to see another game. Today I live to see children and grandchildren grow up to meet their potential and career and life destinies. I live to breathe and to write and to share ideas. I live to listen to new music, to pat old cats and to grow old with my wife.

Today I live with the knowledge that I inhabit the greatest machine ever known to man and if I am to survive I need to maintain it so I can live with spirit and energy in the available light.

Max Christoffersen shares this column in recognition and with gratitude for the staff of Tauranga Hospital including Dr Anna Lewis, nurses Rachel, Lois, Katherine and Dr Liz Davies. http://www.heartfoundation.org.nz/