A Year After Her Heart Stopped on a Brisbane River Run, Kaley Koppa Meets the Strangers Who Brought Her Back
A fit 43-year-old runner collapsed in cardiac arrest beside the Brisbane River. A passing walker began CPR, casino security staff ran over with a defibrillator, and one shock kept her alive until paramedics arrived. On Restart a Heart Day, she thanked them in person.
Just News Desk, Correspondent||3 min read
BRISBANE, Australia - Kaley Koppa was about 10 kilometers into a 16-kilometer morning run along the Brisbane River in October 2025 when she began to feel unwell and sat down on a bench. Within moments she had stopped breathing. Koppa, then a fit and healthy 43-year-old, did not know she had a genetic heart condition, and for several minutes, 7NEWS reported, she was clinically dead. Strangers kept her alive. A year later, on Restart a Heart Day, she was reunited with them, the Queensland Ambulance Service said in an Oct. 16 post.
"I was running and I saw this building here, and I don't remember anything else," she told 9News.
According to the ambulance service, security staff at the Star casino saw her collapse on their closed-circuit cameras, called Triple Zero, Australia's emergency number, and rushed to her with an automated external defibrillator. A passerby, identified by the service only as David, had also called Triple Zero and begun CPR. Together, the service said, the strangers delivered a lifesaving shock before paramedics arrived.
The walker and his companion had been out for a morning stroll on the boardwalk, 7NEWS and 9News reported. "Her face is blue," one of them told the emergency operator in a recording broadcast by 7NEWS. "She's just saying she's not breathing."
An automated external defibrillator in a wall cabinet beneath an AED sign, March 29, 2025. Illustrative image of the kind of device used in the rescue, not the defibrillator used on Kaley Koppa. Photo: Infrogmation, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Source page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AED_-_Automated_external_defibrillator_in_compartment_with_sign_above.jpg
The rescuer who operated the defibrillator had never used one before, 7NEWS reported. "I pressed the button, had everyone stand back. We shocked her once," he said. Speaking to 9News, he said that once it was clear "she needed our help," helping her was all he could focus on.
Emma Medcraft, a Queensland Ambulance Service paramedic, said the bystanders' actions made the difference. "I think that if the defib and bystanders' CPR hadn't been performed in this case, she would be in a much worse state than she is," she told 9News.
Koppa recovered in hospital. Meeting her rescuers again, she struggled to find words for what strangers had done for her. "These are people that have never met me in their life," she told 7NEWS. "I didn't know who they were and they came and they helped." To 9News, she said: "I can't believe I am still alive thanks to everybody who came to help me."
The Queen's Wharf development, developed by the Star Entertainment Group, under construction on the Brisbane River, seen from Southbank Parklands, Oct. 28, 2021. Illustrative image of the riverside precinct, taken years before the rescue. Photo: John Robert McPherson, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Source page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Queens_Wharf_development_from_Southbank_Parklands_South_Brisbane_L1180411.jpg
Her survival is unusual. More than 32,000 Australians suffer a cardiac arrest each year, 7NEWS reported, and only about 10 percent survive when it happens outside a hospital. "Everything just lined up so perfectly," Koppa said. "It's not too often that that happens."
That is why she chose Restart a Heart Day to tell her story. The ambulance service said her message was that everyone who learns CPR, and every business that installs a defibrillator, helps save lives. "You never know who's going to need it," she told 9News, "and that day it ended up being me."
Sources: Queensland Ambulance Service, official Facebook post, Oct. 16, 2026: https://www.facebook.com/qldambulanceservice/posts/in-october-2025-kaley-koppa-was-on-her-usual-morning-run-along-the-brisbane-rive/1608571731313383/ ; 7NEWS, Connor Alforque, Oct. 16, 2026: https://7news.com.au/news/public-health/brisbane-runner-kaley-koppa-reunites-with-strangers-who-saved-her-life-after-sudden-cardiac-arrest-c-23032404 ; 9News / Nine.com.au, Patrick Brischetto, Oct. 16, 2026: https://www.nine.com.au/australia-news/qld/kayley-koppa-was-declared-dead-for-several-minutes-several-strangers-stepped-in-to-save-her-life-20261016-p6169y.html . Nine spells her first name "Kayley"; this article follows the Queensland Ambulance Service spelling.
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