Leighton Cumming, 47, was outside his home about 1am on December 2, 2015, when he became unable to breathe and collapsed.

He was dead for nine minutes before paramedics revived him, transporting him to Bendigo Health where he remained in a coma.

Even after regaining consciousness and undergoing months of rehabilitation, Mr Cumming remains in a wheelchair, unable to feed himself. 

He now resides at Joan Pinder nursing home in North Bendigo, receiving around-the-clock care.  

Mr Cumming’s partner, Sharon, said her life and the lives of their three children were changed forever because of the incident.

Doctor’s appointments have made it impossible for her to work and the children – aged seven, 10 and 13 – were still traumatised.  

“My little boy had a breakdown at school because he feels guilty he couldn’t help his dad,” Ms Mitchell said.  

“The other one just has nightmares every time he sees him. 

“It's just sort of ruined there lives.” 

Ms Mitchell said people were often disbelieving that asthma could have caused her partner’s injuries, thinking instead he survived a car crash. 

Last year’s thunderstorm asthma event, that killed nine people, again proved the community was not aware of the dangers associated with the lung condition, she said.  

“People don't understand what effect (it can have), what you can end up like,” Ms Mitchell said.

“If only you had seen him the last year and a half, what he's been through and what everyone's been through, then you would understand.”

She wanted her family’s experience to act as a warning to other asthma sufferers about the importance of taking preventative medication, especially in preparation for this time of year. 

“It was hay fever season, it was windy, there was pollen and so forth,” Ms Mitchell said when describing the conditions on the day her partner fell ill.  

Doctors prescribed him a preventative inhaler but Mr Cumming rarely used the device, his partner said. He only sometimes suffered symptoms, using an reliever to control his wheezing.

Mr Cumming is among thousands of asthmatics around Australia who relied solely on reliever medication for to manage their asthma. 

A Woolcock Institute survey of 2700 asthmatics found 39 per cent only ever used a reliever, treating their symptoms but not the cause.

This group were likely “living in fear” of a severe asthma attack, but still tried managing worsening symptoms themselves rather than seeing a doctor, the survey found.  

The survey’s author, Professor Helen Reddel, said those people should not be complacent about their health.

“We need urgent changes to both the prescribing and use of medications to protect thousands of Australians from suffering serious health problems from ill-managed asthma,” Professor Reddel said.

The Asthma Foundation estimates 2.3 million Australians live with asthma, more than half of whom use their reliever on more than two days every week.