Matt Paterson (34) , of Musselburgh, was 10 years old when he had his first epileptic fit — a generalised tonic-clonic seizure — a disturbance in the functioning of both sides of his brain.
"You drop down and fit on the ground," Mr Paterson said.
After a range of tests, he was diagnosed about six months later and has been on medication since.
Despite taking medication, doctors deemed his epilepsy as uncontrolled, because up to about a year ago, he had a seizure about a month apart for about seven years.
After a medical event in September last year, he was put in an induced coma and spent a week in Dunedin Hospital’s intensive care unit.
"They couldn’t stop my brain from seizures activity, so they had no choice but to put me under because my other organs were starting to shut down."
He had been seizure-free since coming out of the coma but doctors had warned him to expect a similar medical event.
To prepare, he had worn a high-tech safety pendant since being discharged.
The GPSOS pendant had fall detection and was activated when tipped suddenly.
On activation, the pendant automatically called an operator, who was available any time and answered the call "Is everything OK?", broadcast across a speaker in the pendant.
If the pendant wearer fails to respond, the operator started working through an emergency plan.
His plan required the operator to call him on his cellphone — if he does not answer his cellphone then the operator would then alert St John to put paramedics on standby.
The next part of the plan was for his wife Holly to be called by the operator.
If she does not respond — or was not in the same location as her husband — an ambulance would be deployed.
The pendant features GPS technology to provide a location for St John.
The technology gave him the confidence to go to different places, such as playgrounds with his three sons.
Before he had the technology, he was warned against taking his children out by himself in case he had a seizure.
The restrictions made raising a family a challenge, he said.
"I couldn’t provide any relief to my wife Holly — I couldn’t just take them down to the park. "That was hard when you saw other fathers doing stuff with their kids and you’d think ‘I wish I could do that’ and now I can."
He wondered if a reason for not having a seizure since coming out of the coma was because he had been less anxious since putting on the pendant.
Anxiety could trigger a seizure, he said.
The monitoring service relating to the pendant cost him about $1 a day.
"It’s worth every penny for me and my family to have peace of mind."
