{"id":515263,"date":"2026-07-08T04:58:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T04:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/515263\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T04:58:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T04:58:16","slug":"heart-surgery-survivor-brian-thomson-has-two-guinness-world-records-donates-them-to-wellington-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/515263\/","title":{"rendered":"Heart surgery survivor Brian Thomson has two Guinness World Records, donates them to Wellington Hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BrianBrian Thomson spoke with staff from the cardio and thoracic team at Wellington Hospital. The certificates he donated hung on the walls of the ward.<\/p>\n

Thomson was also believed to be the first person in the world to have a heart aneurysm treated by endovascular coiling, which had previously only been used to treat brain aneurysms.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, he travelled to Wellington Regional Hospital with his family to meet the hospital\u2019s current cardio and thoracic team \u2013 46 years after his first surgery.<\/p>\n

He donated his world record certificates to the hospital, saying the institution \u201cdeserved\u201d to have them on the wall.<\/p>\n

The exact ward Thomson was treated in no longer existed after Wellington Hospital was rebuilt in 2009, and the surgeons who helped saved his life have since moved on.<\/p>\n

All that was left is the facade of the old building, which he looked on fondly during his visit. <\/p>\n

\"BrianBrian Thomson became the longest-surviving quintuple heart bypass patient in the world in 2024. He is pictured next to the facade of the old Wellington Hospital, where he was operated on decades ago.<\/p>\n

Across four decades, he also survived two aneurysms, with his key medical milestones having a habit of falling around holidays. <\/p>\n

On Christmas Eve in 1979, he found out he had damaged coronary arteries.<\/p>\n

His first heart bypass happened on the eve of Anzac Day in 1980 in Wellington Hospital, where he was the youngest person in his ward.<\/p>\n

The emergency surgery that removed a 70mm cricket ball-sized aneurysm took place on Labour weekend in 2014. <\/p>\n

Thomson had biked the 150km Otago Rail Trail with the aneurysm, none the wiser.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was killing me but it was killing me slowly enough that something could be done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That aneurysm had eroded into the heart, leaving Thomson with a 25% chance of surviving.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people in my position did not make it through the operation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"OneOne of the two Guinness World Record certificates Brian Thomson donated to Wellington Hospital, where he had his quintuple bypass.<\/p>\n

Thomson had received bad news from doctors several times throughout his life and said he \u201cfound honesty easier to work with than reassurance\u201d.<\/p>\n

He chronicled his health journey in a book called Still Beating and hoped to get it published so he could inspire other cardiac patients.<\/p>\n

In it, he credited his wife Marg Thomson for making difficult decisions and being \u201ca woman who answered every crisis with logistics rather than emotion\u201d.<\/p>\n

Thomson said he continued to spend his days the same as he always had: a morning walk, followed by furniture making, surrounded by \u201cthe smell of fresh-cut timber\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe heart is still beating.<\/p>\n

\u201cForty-six years of extra time. I have tried to spend it sensibly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wellington Hospital\u2019s consultant cardiothoracic surgeon Sean Galvin said Thomson\u2019s enduring health was a \u201cremarkable testament to both his resilience and the quality of the surgery he received at that time\u201d.<\/p>\n

Cardiac surgery had significantly advanced since Thomson was operated on, with improvements in techniques, technology and recovery outcomes. <\/p>\n

That made his long-term survival \u201cespecially impressive\u201d, Galvin said. <\/p>\n

Janhavi Gosavi is a Wellington-based journalist for the New Zealand Herald who covers news in the capital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brian Thomson spoke with staff from the cardio and thoracic team at Wellington Hospital. The certificates he donated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[255903,48376,86609,1070,5159,8530,16558,98756,17515,6803,43862,6871,2862,2241,2944,1357,13106,81768,111,139,69,26859,9090,21529,202,213,6290,14484,1361,2846,64872,210,61,25628,1237,255902,52,377],"class_list":["post-515263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-150km","tag-aneurysm","tag-ballsized","tag-bike","tag-brian","tag-carried","tag-cricket","tag-donates","tag-experience","tag-furniture","tag-guinness","tag-has","tag-heart","tag-hospital","tag-inside","tag-lived","tag-maker","tag-neardeath","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-operations","tag-records","tag-ride","tag-seven","tag-sports","tag-surgery","tag-survivor","tag-that","tag-them","tag-thomson","tag-through","tag-to","tag-twizel","tag-two","tag-unknowingly","tag-wellington","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}