A kiss goodnight saved my life, says heart hubby

A WIFE who noticed her husband’s eyes had rolled to the back of his head as she kissed him goodnight in bed went on to save his life.

Carol Ayers, 53, gave CPR to Neil, 57, while she waited for paramedics to arrive. As she pumped his chest, she yelled: “Don’t leave me, I love you, I love you, don’t go.”

Doctors later told them that Neil had suffered a huge heart attack and “basically died” for 20 minutes.

The dock worker, who has no previous history of heart disease, said: “If Carol hadn’t have kissed me goodnight she would have woken up to my dead body in the morning.

“I don’t know how you can repay someone for saving your life but I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying.” Carol, who’d been on a first aid course 15 years previously, saw Neil’s eyes roll via street light coming in through the bedroom curtain.

She said: “I thought he was messing around and I told him to stop

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being silly but he didn’t respond.” NHS cleaner Carol then dialled 999 and pulled Neil to the floor to give him chest compressions.

Four minutes later paramedics arrived and she heard them “shocking him and saying ‘No, no response’ – it was terrible”.

They restarted his heart after using a defibrillator seven times. But they had to knock out the window and lower him horizontally to the ground in case a rush of blood to the legs stopped it again.

Neil, who has two sons, spent a week in an induced coma at Ipswich Hospital. He said: “After I woke I asked doctors why I didn’t have any brain damage [from lack of oxygen].

“They said without a doubt I had my wife to thank.” He is now campaigning for more defibrillators in and around the town, where he lives.