A young man claims he was driven to such despair by the debilitating heart problems he suffered after receiving the Covid vaccines that he almost committed suicide.
Despite visiting numerous cardiologists and being hospitalized with a diagnosis of pericarditis after his second Pfizer vaccine, 26-year-old Conor Briggs said he was not offered anything to tackle the condition other than antidepressants.
Mr Briggs said pericarditis, an inflammation of the sac-like tissue surrounding the heart called the pericardium, made his life hell.
“There were nights when I just couldn't sleep because I felt like someone was standing on my chest or squeezing my lungs,” he said.
'I couldn't lie flat. The position where you flatten out puts your heart in a position that makes it difficult to breathe.”
Doctors told Mr Briggs his condition was not serious enough for compensation from the now closed Commonwealth scheme.
He has now joined a class action led by Dr Melissa McCann, which is suing Australian health authorities and associated public figures for failing in their duty of care to those injured by the vaccine.
Before taking the vaccines at the age of 23, Mr Briggs worked in property rental, studied IT at university and said he was the healthiest he had ever been, running up to 10km every day.
Conor Briggs, 26, said heart injury caused by two Covid vaccines drove him to commit suicide
Conor said that before taking the Pfizer Covid vaccines, he was the healthiest he had ever been
“I took my health a lot more seriously, eating healthy, going to the gym and all that,” he said.
“My arms had twice the muscle strength I have now.”
Even though the Covid vaccines were not required for his job, Briggs said he felt pressured to get them.
“My boss said every day, 'Hey, are you going to take the pictures?', while everyone else at work was basically doing it every day,” Mr. Briggs said.
Before receiving his first Covid shot on September 17, 2021, Mr Briggs said he was not particularly concerned, despite seeing some media reports about people suffering from blood clots and heart problems after receiving them.
“I didn't research the safety of the vaccines because I thought 'the doctors know what they are talking about,'” he said.
'I had no reason not to trust them. I thought I was actually doing something good.”
A few hours after receiving the first injection, Mr. Briggs began experiencing moderate tightness in his chest and difficulty breathing.
Mr Briggs has been unable to work since receiving the jab and spends most days at his home
Although hospitals and cardiologists diagnosed Mr Briggs with pericarditis due to his Pfizer Covid vaccine, they were able to provide little treatment.
Specialists were often unable to understand Conor's symptoms after the initial diagnosis of pericarditis
When the problems persisted, he went to his GP, who told him it was still a good idea to get the second Covid jab for 'full protection'.
He also gave Mr Briggs some anti-inflammatory drugs which cleared up 90 per cent of his health problems.
Mr Briggs received a second Pfizer vaccine on October 8, 2021 with devastating results within hours of being jabbed.
“I just felt like a weight on my chest,” he said.
'It felt like a different weight than after the first shot. Tighter, harder to breathe and I was super tired the next day.
“But I thought it was one of the expected side effects and showed that the vaccine worked.”
However, in the following days there was no sign of improvement and Mr Briggs said he experienced an alarming physical decline.
“Two days after the second injection I went back to work and there are ten flights of stairs to get to the office,” Mr Briggs said.
'About five or six steps up, my chest became a lot tighter and breathing became a lot more difficult than normal.'
Ultimately, Mr Briggs went back to the GP.
“She said, 'I'll never forget this sentence, 'oh thank goodness it's just pericarditis,'” Mr Briggs said.
'I thought: 'lucky, a 23-year-old with heart problems'.'
Forests of the Fallen features stories of people who claim to have been harmed by the Covid vaccines (pictured at an exhibition at Christies Beach in Adelaide in March)
Northern Beaches grandmother Rosemary Marshall, 70, organizes the Forest of the Fallen for Sydney's north side
The Australian Department of Health reports that “most cases of myocarditis and pericarditis associated with COVID-19 vaccination have been mild and patients have recovered quickly.”
Mr Briggs said he is not convinced.
“A lot of people have been told the same thing, but they had to have surgery to drain fluid because it doesn't just go away,” he said.
Mr Briggs said he had tried 'five to six' different cardiologists over a year to find a treatment that worked for him.
However, he claimed that none of the specialists could tell him much about his condition, and one of the specialists even abruptly ended the consultation by telling him, 'Well, I've done everything I could. I can't do anything else. Goodbye.'
Another said to him: 'Conor, you wasted so much time, you wasted so much money when you probably could have taken these antidepressants and been fine.'
“I took one,” said Mr. Briggs.
'But within a minute of taking it, I thought this wasn't right.
'I know my condition is physical and not in my head. If I can solve the physical problem, I won't have any mental problems.'
Mr. Briggs said he and his family spent more than $100,000 trying a bewildering array of medications, herbs and other treatments to relieve his symptoms without anything making much difference until he went to a hospital just over two years ago. osteopath went.
“He's the only one who has made a noticeable difference in my breathing,” Briggs said.
Although visiting the osteopath has made his heart condition more bearable, it still dominates his life.
“The sun and the heat are giving me palpitations,” Briggs said.
'I get tightness in my chest and it's hard to breathe when I walk up a hill or more than 20 flights of stairs.
'I have to plan my day. If it's a hot day, I can't be outside too much. My usual days are at home to see if there are other treatments or things that might work.”
He finally told his unsuspecting family how close he had come to taking his life.
“They were obviously a little shocked, but glad I told them,” Briggs said.
Health and weather permitting, Conor attempts to reach the so-called 'Forest of the Fallen', a weekly protest held on Sydney's northern beaches, where bamboo sticks are stuck into the sand to represent stories of people who claiming the Covid vaccine has caused harm.
“During Forests of Fallen I met a lot of people in my position, a lot of people who didn't even know the injections had side effects,” Mr Briggs said.
Northern Beaches grandmother Rosemary Marshall, 70, is organizing the Forest of the Fallen for Sydney's north side.
She said she met Mr Briggs through his mother Paula.
“I could hear the sadness in her voice and the fear,” Ms Marshall told Daily Mail Australia.
“Paula really wanted to help Conor, she is definitely his support system.”
Mr Briggs said Dr McCann's class action on behalf of those affected by the vaccine was a long shot at receiving some monetary compensation, but he hoped it would achieve other results for the benefit of those claiming to have been injured affected by the vaccines.
In response to questions about Mr Briggs' case, a Pfizer spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia the vaccine has “saved countless lives”.
“Pfizer is deeply committed to the well-being of the patients it serves and has no higher priority than ensuring the safety and effectiveness of its treatments and vaccines,” the spokesperson said.
'The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine has been administered to more than 4.3 billion people in 180 countries and territories around the world, has shown a favorable benefit-risk profile across all age groups and has helped protect against severe outcomes of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death.
“The safety of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine continues to be closely monitored through post-authorization surveillance by Pfizer, BioNTech and regulatory authorities around the world.”
If you need someone to talk to during a personal crisis, call Lifeline Australia on 13 11 14
