Watch Mohamed's story and hear how his hay fever turned to asthma after a thunderstorm asthma event.
View other thunderstorm asthma videos in the series.
Mohamed's story
Mohamed Barre had undiagnosed asthma and a history of hay fever. He experienced an asthma attack for the first time during the epidemic thunderstorm asthma event of 21 November 2016.
Mohamed was in his local park on 21 November 2016, enjoying playtime with his 3 children, when he started to feel unwell. He was breathless, but at first put it down to the physical activity. Mohamed was 35 and in good health. He told his eldest son and they decided to go home. After the short walk home, Mohamed was still short of breath and felt dizzy, but he wasn’t sure what to do.
Mohamed and his family lived fairly close to a hospital, so he asked his sister-in-law to drive him there, rather than call an ambulance.
When he arrived at the hospital, he quickly realised something big was going on. The emergency room was inundated with other people seeking medical attention. (Hospitals across Victoria were experiencing the same kind of high demand.)
The treating nurse who saw Mohamed told him that the thunderstorm had caused many people to experience asthma symptoms at the same time. He was given reliever medication and was shown the 4 steps of asthma first aid.
"I felt relieved, my lungs were no longer wheezing and I wasn’t coughing anymore," Mohamed said.
The treating nurse told Mohamed to follow up with his GP, who confirmed that he had asthma. Mohamed now carries his reliever medication with him at all times, and also has one in the car.
Since the 2016 event, Mohamed has taken a strong interest in respiratory health and is keen to share this knowledge with his family and community. He learnt the asthma first aid steps, and also taught his eldest son so that he could help out if Mohamed or anyone else was having an asthma attack.
"I decided to do my own awareness of asthma and thunderstorm asthma and I started sharing this information with my entire community.
Whenever I attend public or community gatherings I always talk about it and share with the people.
I feel better now because my asthma plan is under control and I have the knowledge to know what to do about it."
I was with my children in a public park, playing with the kids and all of a sudden I felt like [I was] breathing very hard. I didn’t know what was going on. I’d never had asthma; I’d never had a thunderstorm [asthma] attack before
I discussed it with my son who was 12 years old at the time. I told him I’m not feeling well, I think we’d better go home.
When we got home I didn’t know what to do. I was still breathing very hard.
When it was 8 o’clock that’s when I decided to go to the hospital.
The medical staff explained to me there was a thunderstorm and ‘all these people you can see here, they have the same symptoms as you’.
For the first time I thought it was just something new to me, and this is not something life threatening. But when I came here and the medical staff explained to me more details, that’s when I panicked and I felt ‘I’m lucky that I’m here at the hospital now’.
I got looked after by a nurse.
The nurse advised me I have to do the puffs of Ventolin and she showed me the 4 steps [of asthma first aid].
When I used the Ventolin 4 times I felt relieved and my lungs were no longer wheezing and I wasn’t coughing any more.
I went to my doctors and from there we started following up on what to do and how to tackle it. Thank god I’m ok now.
I carry reliever medication all the time, in my car, in my house, wherever I am going I have it. And now I know what I’m doing because I educated myself about the asthma plan and now I can help myself and help others.
I did first aid for asthma, and from there I started working with my community.
I teach so many people what to do – the 4 steps of asthma first aid.
Whenever I attend public or community gatherings I always talk about it and share with the people.
I feel better now because I have the knowledge and I know what asthma and thunderstorm [asthma] is about. I never knew before so now I have the knowledge and I’m not panicking about anything.
I feel my asthma plan is under control and I know what I’m doing now.