Mayor's 10-Second Choice Saves Deputy Mayor's Life

Chris Homer was seconds away from diving into the surf when his phone rang last Friday morning at North Manyana beach on Australia's South Coast.

The Shellharbour mayor almost let it go to voicemail. But something made him answer deputy mayor Kellie Marsh's call instead of closing his car hatch and paddling out.

Five minutes into their conversation, Marsh's words started fading. Homer knew she got bad migraines, but this felt different.

"Kellie, Kellie, are you there?" he kept asking. She mumbled about seeing stars, made strange noises, then went silent.

Homer immediately called Marsh's 23-year-old son Nathan, who found his mother collapsed on the bathroom floor, foaming at the mouth and unresponsive. Two brain aneurysms had ruptured, causing seizures and dangerous bleeding around her brain.

The mayor stayed on the line with emergency services while Nathan and neighbors helped until paramedics arrived. Marsh was rushed first to Wollongong Hospital, then to Sydney's Prince of Wales Hospital for two emergency surgeries.

"I just remember my vision got quite funny," Marsh said from intensive care days later. "I do get migraines badly, but this was different."

She has little memory of collapsing or the seizures that followed. But she knows how close it came.

Sunny's Take

This story is about more than luck. It's about the invisible threads that connect us when we're paying attention.

Homer and Marsh had built the kind of trust where answering her call felt natural, even on vacation. That relationship, formed through countless council meetings and delegated responsibilities, became lifesaving in an instant.

"It really came down to about 10 seconds, choosing to pick up the phone instead of closing the hatch and going for a surf," Homer said. "Cr Marsh and I are really close. She's the best deputy mayor a mayor could have."

Dr. Jorn Van Der Veken, a neurosurgeon at Flinders Medical Centre, confirmed that timing is critical with ruptured aneurysms. These bulges affect two to five percent of people but rarely rupture, striking only six Australians per 100,000 yearly.

When they do burst, patients describe a "thunderclap headache" like being hit with a hammer. Rapid emergency care is essential to prevent a second, often fatal bleed.

Now recovering in intensive care, Marsh says she feels blessed and overwhelmed by support. She's already eager to return to work.

Homer still thinks about those 10 seconds that changed everything, grateful for the instinct that made him answer.