44-year-old Alwos Lagot came very close to death last Thursday.
Medical doctors at the Pacific International Hospital say it would have been a different story if Lagot had ignored the numbness in both arms.
Lagot was lifting heavy equipment when he experienced his first ever signs of heart attack.
"That's how it (heart attack) happens," Dr Suresh Venkita, cardiologist and medical director, PIH, explained on Wednesday.
Lagot said the feeling of numbness in both arms was present for a long while so without hesitation, he went to the hospital that same night.
“I thought it was a normal chest pain,” he recalls.
But it was not. He was told he had suffered a massive heart attack.
One major blood vessel of his heart had almost 99 percent blockage.
Lagot was medevaced to Port Moresby on Saturday to undergo a very delicate and critical procedure called the primary angioplasty.
“They told me they would remove the blockage and allow for blood flow to the heart again. I was confused because none of my family had a disease like this and this was my first time,” he says.
“But doctors told me it was from my excessive cigarette smoking and high fat diet, which I now agree. It’s the lifestyle I lived. I work, eat and smoke. I don’t exercise.”
When Loop PNG visited Lagot at the ICU, Lagot was doing well for a man who had just undergone a critical procedure.
He is expected to be discharged later this week.
And wife Delma, who is with him at the hospital, is determined to see her husband live a healthier life.
“This is his turning point. He will not smoke and drink. I will make sure of that. Doctors say he is a lucky man. I thank God and the doctors here,” she said.
The couple has five children.
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