When infomercial queen Suzanne Paul woke up after fainting during a Zoom call, it was typical of her to think that she had just been on the floor playing with her dog Matty.
“I thought for a minute, ‘What am I doing down here? It’s not very comfortable – oh, I must have been playing with Matty,’” says Suzanne, recounting her blackout.
“There couldn’t have been anything wrong with me because I’m one of those people who has a cast-iron British constitution and I never get colds, coughs or the flu.”
On September 22, Suzanne had been doing a motivational talk to 250 people for 50 minutes on Zoom when things started going horribly wrong.
“I have no memory of it now, but apparently I face-planted onto my desk in the middle of talking, and was down there for a few seconds before I sat back up and said, ‘Now, where was I?’ Then my eyes rolled back in my head and I went backwards right off the chair.”
Suzanne is laughing as she tells this story, but while it was happening, she was very scared.
“Ryman Healthcare, who I was doing the speech for, thought I was having a stroke, so they switched the Zoom off and started trying to get in touch with me on the phone.”
Suzanne woke up on the floor after a few minutes and found her phone. It was ringing, but she had set it on silent while she did her talk.
“I said, ‘Oh, hello, I don’t know what happened there, where has everybody gone? I think my computer has gone off, so let’s carry on, shall we?’ All they could say was please call an ambulance.”
This story is from the November 22 2021 edition of New Zealand Woman's Weekly.
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This story is from the November 22 2021 edition of New Zealand Woman's Weekly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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