Super fit teacher Warren ‘shouldn’t be alive’ after health episode left him dead on the road – and it could happen to anyone. This is what he wants you to know before it’s too late

When Warren Williams’ heart stopped for a full 60 seconds during a routine coastal run, his friends thought they’d just watched him die.

But the 64-year-old teacher and professional musician somehow got back up, dusted himself off and kept on running, insisting he was ‘absolutely fine.’

Now doctors say his survival borders on miraculous and he’s using his second chance at life to educate others on heart health.

Hailing from Maroubra in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, the father-of-two has endured more life-threatening heart events than most people will ever face – remarkable for someone who grew up as the ultimate ‘poster boy of health’.

Into fitness from a young age, Warren dabbled in surfing and rugby league, but everything changed at 17 when his father-in-law introduced him to running, which was the moment his lifelong obsession truly began.

‘That’s when I got into ultra-fitness and then progressed to triathlons,’ he told the Daily Mail. ‘By the time I’d reached 21, I’d become utterly obsessed.’

He would go on to smash countless five and 10-kilometre races, dominate half-marathons, and later tackle the Ultra-Trail Australia which weaves 50 kilometres through the Blue Mountains in NSW. 

However, his toughest battles weren’t on the track.

At the same time, Warren was teaching high school and performing in a popular band with his brothers – a group that’s still going strong today. He lived this double life for 16 years – teaching by day, gigging by night and somehow still training seven days a week. 

He recalls ‘burning the candle at both ends’, powering through life with the confidence of someone who felt bulletproof, right up until one morning in 2010 shattered that illusion in an instant.

Warren took his son Jordan to their family GP for a routine check-up, and out of intrigue, casually asked for his own blood pressure to be taken and a listen to his chest – something he’d never done before.

‘My doctor had this strange look on his face, and immediately asked me if I was okay,’ Warren recalled.

‘After wheeling out an ECG machine to investigate, he said “you’ve got some strange stuff happening with your heart”.’

It was then that Warren was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AF) and an atrial flutter, both dangerous arrhythmias that can cause blackouts, strokes and sudden death.

Common warning signs include shortness of breath, fatigue, chest discomfort and sudden dizziness, but the condition is notoriously unpredictable with many feeling nothing at all, while others experience symptoms that come and go without warning.

‘I was in complete shock, I thought he was joking. To that point, I had absolutely no warning signs, I was the fittest I’d ever been and felt great,’ he said.

AF isn’t rare, in fact, more than half a million Australians are living with it. It’s behind a quarter of all strokes and one in ten deaths, making it one of the country’s biggest silent killers.

After what he describes as a ‘disastrous’ three months on heavy medication, Warren was fitted with a seven-day Holter monitor to track his heart around the clock.

To his doctors’ horror, the readings revealed his heart was stopping repeatedly – with one pause lasting an alarming 14 seconds.

Yet, despite looking death in the face daily, Warren hadn’t noticed a thing. He was still going about his jam-packed life as if nothing were wrong.

As a live-saving measure, he was rushed in for emergency surgery that week and fitted with a pacemaker, believing that would be the end of the ordeal.

And for more than a decade, it was.

But everything changed during a coastal run with his squad in April 2021, when his heart betrayed him once again in the most dramatic way.

‘As soon as I stopped running, everything just went completely black,’ he recalled of his dramatic collapse on the side of a busy road.

Witnesses say Warren was unconscious for a full minute, yet, in a miracle defying logic, he suddenly stood up, brushed off the blood pouring from his face and head, and insisted he was fine to carry on running.

Later at the hospital, technicians downloaded data from his pacemaker device and couldn’t believe their eyes after realising his heart had completely stopped at the scene.

Further tests revealed a rupture in his left anterior descending artery, a notoriously deadly injury. 

Doctors told him the only safeguard was another huge surgery to insert a combined pacemaker-defibrillator – but with it came a brutal prediction that he’d likely never run again.

However, in true form, Warren was defying the odds within two weeks.

He was back coaching, back singing and, of course, back running – and he hasn’t slowed down since.

Specialists have since admitted his survival defies every medical expectation, and many believe his exceptional fitness is the only reason he walked away from an episode that should have been fatal.

Today, Warren coaches more than 300 athletes across his booming Sydney Run Squad, mentors elite juniors, and represents Medtronic, The Heart Foundation, The Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute and the Heart Research Institute.

‘I’m not scared of death in the way I was before, there was no bright light, no angels or anything, and that’s okay,’ he said.

But he’s adamant his story should serve as a warning.

‘Regardless of how fit you are, once you turn 40, get your heart checked out.’