Cheryl looked out the window to make sure he was okay before prepping some lunch, but when she looked out again he was nowhere to be seen. Knowing he would never leave a digger running, she rushed outside.
"I found him slumped backwards in the digger."
The 57-year-old had suffered a heart attack and was unresponsive.
Cheryl screamed for Adara but the seven-year-old was in a state of shock so she yelled for her neighbour Davide Rutten, whose property was about 50m away.
Davide was using a chainsaw at a cottage on his own property, so was out of earshot. Fortunately his wife Amanda Rutten was walking to their house from the cottage to get something when she heard Cheryl's cries for help.
Fearing Brett had rolled the digger, she grabbed Davide and the couple were soon on the scene.
Amanda ran into the Percival's home and phoned 111 while it took Davide and Cheryl three herculean attempts to get Brett out of the digger and on to the ground.
Trained nurse Amanda started CPR, in her first real life situation, with Davide and Cheryl assisting too.
A Wellington Free Ambulance (WFA) crew, which was fortunately in Waikanae at the time, arrived followed by Waikanae Volunteer Fire Brigade and an WFA urgent community care paramedic crew.
"They worked on him for about an hour and a half and had to use a defibrillator on him three times," Cheryl recalls.
Though Brett wasn't conscious, his body was fighting attempts to help him, which made a tracheotomy, to create an opening from the neck to the windpipe, too risky to perform.
After some drugs were administered, and a breathing tube inserted through his mouth, Brett was airlifted, still unable to breath for himself, via the Westpac Rescue Helicopter to Wellington Hospital and put on life support.
During this crisis period Amanda and her sister Sara Breen managed the household logistics until it was time for Amanda to drive Cheryl and Adara to the hospital.
Calculating the time when the heart attack struck, Cheryl says "It was somewhere in the window of 10 to 20 minutes that he had gone -- without any oxygen."
Brett, who spent time in both Wellington and Hutt hospitals, was in an induced coma for three days.
To reduce risk of brain injury, he had a green cooling blanket on him to keep his body temperature under 37 degrees, and cloth footwear which pulsated to keep his blood circulating.
"It was unreal what they did in the ICU ward," Cheryl said.
After six days in hospital, which included having a stent inserted in an artery to his heart, Brett was discharged.
"The heart surgeon at Hutt Hospital said to him, 'you're the luckiest man alive'."
Brett took part in an after care rehabilitation programme and is now back full time at work.
Davide and Amanda managed the property and animals until Brett and Cheryl were able to return home.
The couple are very thankful to the support services and volunteers who helped on the day and especially thanked Amanda and Davide for acting so quickly.
Without CPR knowledge and application the outcome would have been a very different story.
"There was so much energy willing Brett to come through."
Brett and Cheryl have since met with some of the support services and John Mills, a volunteer fireman who later said to Brett, "The thanks is that you're actually standing upright."
Brett said, "We have an incredible health system from the volunteers and first responders to the excellent specialist hospital teams especially in Wellington and the Hutt."
