Auckland dad had hidden heart issue that would have killed him within years - how he found out, and what saved him

• An Auckland father in his 40s only discovered a deadly heart problem while running a marathon.
• Matt Hall-White speaks to the Herald about the symptoms, how his partner’s insistence that he see a cardiologist saved his life, and the unexpected bumps in his long recovery.
• The Heart Foundation, which is holding its annual fundraising appeal this Friday and Saturday, February 21 and 22, warns public wait lists are “unacceptable”.

Matt Hall-White was 30km into the Rotorua Marathon when his heart rate spiked alarmingly.

He thought the monitor around his arm was malfunctioning, so switched it off. But his watch showed the same runaway heart rate - which he confirmed by placing his fingers to his throat.

Hall-White, aged 44 at the time of the 2023 race and who had completed numerous marathons and ultra-marathons in the preceding decade, managed to finish the race through a combination of walking and slow running.

Matt Hall-White, of Flat Bush, Auckland, survived an aortic aneurysm, and is telling his story to support the Heart Foundation's annual fundraising appeal. Photo / supplied by Heart Foundation

A few days later he felt “terrible” attempting an easy jog around his block in Flatbush, Auckland. His partner convinced him to see a cardiologist, which happened quickly thanks to private insurance.

The doctor did an echocardiogram - an ultrasound that creates images of the heart - and a few days later called Hall-White back in for an appointment.

The scan had found an aortic aneurysm, which happens when a section of the aorta (the main artery that carries blood away from the heart) wall is damaged, causing it to bulge or swell.

“It’s like a hose,” Hall-White says. “It’s got a weakness in it, and it just starts bulging out.”

A rupture often results in death, and in many cases there is little to no warning of the condition.

“I was planning on doing a 100km ultra [marathon] at the end of the year. The cardiologist said, ‘Oh jeepers, if you’d done that, this thing would have burst and you would have died. Don’t push yourself until we have the surgery.’”

That happened in July 2023. During surgery it was discovered the aortic valve had been stretched, and it was replaced by a mechanical valve. Hall-White also suffered complete heart block, which is an emergency where the heart is unable to properly pump blood.

He woke up with an external pacemaker - “like a walkie-talkie that has wires that go into your heart” - and the news he’d be on blood thinners for the rest of his life. The intubation tube had also damaged his vocal cords, taking his voice completely for a week and reducing it to this day.

“They were hoping my heart would bounce back after surgery. Every day while I was in MercyAscot Hospital they would switch off the external pacemaker, and I would start to lose consciousness, and they would go, ‘Okay, that’s not working.’

“After a week of that, they said, ‘No, your heart’s not coming back, we need to put in a pacemaker.’”

That surgery happened a week later. A gruelling, slow recovery followed. Hall-White had six weeks off work, and struggled when he returned. He lived alone with his teenage sons, so his partner and mother took turns staying with them, and driving him to appointments.

“It was pretty scary for the kids. To see me go from being very fit and running marathons to barely being able to walk up the stairs. I live in a three-storey townhouse so even getting around my home became difficult.

“I couldn’t lift anything more than a kg. I had to sleep a lot. I’m a stomach sleeper, and I couldn’t sleep on my stomach because in open heart surgery your sternum is cut open and then attached back together with wire.

“You go into the surgery feeling all right and pretty fit. And I came out of it and felt like I was 90.”

The ordeal took an unexpected mental toll, too.

“Even now, I’m not keen on going into the hospital.”

However, the recovery also showed Hall-White the love and support he has in his life. People dropped off frozen meals, and visited him frequently, which boosted his spirits given his outgoing and social nature.

Hall-White completed a half-marathon last year (with his cardiologist’s blessing), but the 46-year-old isn’t sure he will return to running longer distances.

“The mental scars are still there … I’ve become a bit scared of pushing myself … it was pretty terrifying. To this day, it feels like a bad dream.”

The experience contributed to a change in career, from IT sales to a self-employed insurance adviser, talking to people about disability and health insurance.

“I had trauma insurance that I had cancelled a few years beforehand, because I thought, ‘I’m young and relatively young and fit’… it would have come in really handy. I could have taken a year off work and recovered properly.”

The Heart Foundation's annual street appeal will happen this Friday and Saturday, February 21 and 22.

Hall-White agreed to speak to the Herald to support the Heart Foundation’s “big heart appeal”, which runs this Friday, February 21, and Saturday, February 22, and will see hundreds of volunteers collecting donations. Online donations can also be made at heartfoundation.org.nz/donation

Money raised will fund vital research, and help young cardiologists train overseas, to ensure specialists here are world-class.

Gisborne Hospital cardiologist Dr Gerry Devlin, the Heart Foundation’s medical director, said great strides had been made since the charity was established 56 years ago, but heart disease remains New Zealand’s single biggest killer, claiming more than 6500 lives a year.

Globally, reductions in the burden of heart disease had plateaued, Devlin said, and that appeared to be the case here, too. The exact reasons were still unknown, he said.

“In our own country the burden of heart disease falls unequally on Māori and Pacific, and we need to understand that, and that’s some of the research that we are funding.”

Those reliant on the public system face big wait lists and delays that are “not acceptable”, Devlin said.

“We’ve got waitlists to access specialists, we’ve got waitlists to access diagnostic tests once you see a specialist. And then if you need surgery - you need stenting, or whatever - we’ve got wait lists that aren’t moving as quickly as any of us would like.”

Hall-White, whose disease surfaced during a marathon, wants people to know the issue isn’t only one for the aged or unhealthy.

“You don’t have to be old and decrepit for this sort of stuff to happen.”

Nicholas Jones is an investigative reporter at the Herald. He was a finalist for Reporter of the Year at the 2024 Voyager Media Awards, and has won numerous national media awards for his reporting and feature writing.