As a fit man, Stirling mayor Mark Irwin thought he was invincible until he suddenly had a heart attack after a charity soccer match.

A year on, he has spoken out publicly about his health emergency for the first time to urge other men to get a heart health check this Men’s Health Week.

Mr Irwin was home alone after the soccer game when he suddenly had an overwhelming sick feeling and vomited, but it wasn’t until he went to lie down that he had a feeling of impending doom.

“I thought maybe I’d eaten something bad. Being a typical bloke, I didn’t think it could be anything else, because I’m invincible,” Mr Irwin said.

“I actually rang my twin brother because his wife is an emergency nurse and I remember my brother not even going to her and he said ‘you need to call an ambulance right now’.

“By the time I walked to the lounge room, my brother busted in the door so he must have come from Doubleview in about three minutes flat.

“He actually said to me, ‘You don’t know how bad you look’ and he thought he was coming over to do CPR.”

The ambulance arrived and quickly realised Mr Irwin was having a heart attack, rushing him to Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital under lights and sirens.

At the hospital he was diagnosed with acute coronary syndrome as his right coronary artery was blocked.

Luckily, the blockage could be dissolved through medication rather than surgery.

“It’s an artery blocked in your heart muscle so it can be quite significant to supplying blood to your body. I feel very fortunate,” Mr Irwin said.

Mr Irwin was unaware he could be at risk of a heart attack due to being active — still competing at a state level in surf boats, being a Scarboro Surf Life Saving Club member, as well as going to the gym and on runs regularly.

Mr Irwin urged other men to visit their GP and get a heart check, which is free for people over 45, First Nations people over 30, or over those over 35 with diabetes.

“I thought I was a young 50-year-old that was way too young to worry about this sort of stuff,” Mr Irwin said.

“Men are definitely less likely to get checked. We don’t tend to think of what could go wrong and in that busy lifestyle, you put it as low down in the priorities.

“I say, just take the time to make sure you look after yourself. If you don’t look after yourself, you’re not going to be around to look after someone else.”

A heart health check is a 20-minute appointment with a GP to assess risk of having a heart attack or stroke in the next five years.

As part of the check, a doctor will ask questions about lifestyle and health history as well as checking blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels.