PREVIEW

WORDS BYLINE: Sarah Ingram

**NOTE TO EDITORS - PLEASE RETAIN REFERENCE TO NHS CHARITIES TOGETHER**

Mark Moran was used to endurance sports when a seemingly gentle bike ride saw him lying on the side of the road, with no heartbeat and close to death.

The keen cyclist, triathlete and marathon runner, was fit and healthy when he went into cardiac arrest in November last year.

Mark, 63, from Bristol, was on a bike ride with his friends Steve Makin and Dave Lane going from Cirencester to a pub in Frampton Cotterell, South Gloucestershire.

They were looking forward to chips for lunch at the Crown pub when “the lights started to go out”, he says.

“It happened over a period of a few seconds. I’m on the bike and I start to feel dizzy like I'm passing out. I go to slow down because I’m clipped onto my pedals. And then there was just nothing.

“No energy, no muscle, no nothing. The last thing I remember is facing at an angle. And the last thing to go through my head was - ‘This is it’.

"There was almost a sound of thunder in the background and it just felt like the end,” he remembers.

Mark collapsed on the side of the road and his friend Steve was by his side in seconds.

“It was obvious I was gone,” says Mark

“I was laid there, not moving, with my eyes wide open, not breathing. So for Steve it was absolutely terrifying.”

Steve, who remembered the “Stayin’ Alive” campaign from years before, immediately started CPR, pumping rhythmically to the tune of the Bee Gees so hard on Mark’s chest that he broke three of his ribs.

Steve managed to dial 999 while their other friend Dave cycled back to help, clearing Mark’s airwaves and putting him into the recovery position.

Between them they kept Mark alive until first responder Pete Bishop from South Western Ambulance Service Foundation Trust arrived from Tetbury in just nine minutes.

In another miraculous twist, Steve had the What3words app on his phone, meaning he could direct Pete to their exact position, saving crucial time.

Pete gave Mark, whose lips had turned blue, two lifesaving defibrillator shocks.

“I had no idea just how important first responders are,” says Mark

“These are not ambulances or paramedics. These are trained volunteers whose job is to get there quickly and help.

“Pete, was just sitting at home in his trackie bottoms, doing his day job, he didn’t put on his uniform, he just jumped into a car, flew out and got on with the job. I had no idea that was how it works. They're unpaid and they're phenomenal people,” Mark says.

Soon after Pete’s arrival, both an ambulance and the air ambulance were on the scene. As Mark came around in the ambulance, he called out to his shocked and worried friends: “All right, boys.”

Then he started calling out instructions about where to find his keys, repeatedly, before losing consciousness again.

He was then flown by helicopter to the Bristol Heart Institute, which, “in the chain of survival, is probably one of the best places you could be with a heart issue”, Mark says.

It was just one of the miracles that he credits with saving his life; that Steve remembered CPR, that Pete was available to help and that they had downloaded What3words.

“That’s what brought Pete Bishop to me within nine minutes. If he'd been ten minutes, I might not be here. So that is a pretty phenomenally powerful tool that I knew nothing about.”

Pete later revealed he’d been to twenty cases like Mark’s - and that Mark was the first to survive.

After the cardiac arrest, Mark woke in hospital fitted with his own internal defibrillator, despite having no underlying heart condition.

He spent more than three weeks in hospital before being discharged, and is now fit and well. He went on to run the Bristol Half Marathon six months later to raise money for the air ambulance team who saved his life.

And in July, the trio took the trip again so they could at last visit the pub in Frampton Cotterell for that plate of chips, pausing on the grassy bank where Mark had lain with his head in a bush close to death.

Fewer than ten per cent of people survive cardiac arrest outside of hospital and Mark believes he is exceptionally lucky.

He is now keen for others to learn CPR in case they can save a life. With three-quarters of cardiac arrests happening at home, the first person on the scene is often a family member or bystander.

Early CPR and defibrillation can more than double survival chances, yet NHS Charities Together data shows fewer than three in ten people currently feel confident to step in during an emergency.

NHS Charities Together is aiming to tackle these issues through the allocation of £1.85 million in grants received through a partnership with Omaze.

The funding will support all 14 UK NHS ambulance charities to build capacity in communities, reduce health inequalities, and ease pressure on frontline services by providing the training, resources, and equipment needed to save lives.

Mark, who runs a company called Hydrate For Heath, which produces the award-winning Hydrant drinking system enabling vulnerable people to drink without having to call for help, adds: “My heart was basically stopped for 15 minutes. It's pretty terminal. So I feel like the luckiest guy on the planet. Had it not been for my mates and Pete Bishop, I wouldn’t be here today.”