Did my bet win? Man’s reaction after surviving heart attack
HEART ATTACK VICTIM WHO COLLAPSED IN BETTING SHOP RECOVERS – AND IMMEDIATELY CHECKS WHETHER HIS FOOTBALL ACCUMULATOR HAS COME IN
ONE of the first things a football fan did after recovering from a heart attack he suffered in a bookies was check to see if his bet had won.
Keith Fletcher, 67, was putting his regular Saturday afternoon football accumulator bet on in Rochdale town centre when he collapsed.
Luckily for the retired engineer, staff at the nearby Rochdale Exchange shopping centre – trained in life-saving first aid techniques – were on hand.
They performed CPR and used a defibrillator to help stabilise him until paramedics arrived to take him to hospital.
Keith, of Littleborough, said: “They saved my life.
“If they hadn’t acted as quickly as they did the ambulance wouldn’t have been able to do anything. I owe them everything.”
In total CPR was performed on Keith five times and he spent almost three weeks in hospital recovering.
And after being discharged one of the first things Rochdale fan Keith did was to check if his bet had won.
Sadly it hadn’t, but unaware of what had happened he then went back to the bookies and discovered that shopping centre security staff Tony Kemp and Raja Tariq, together with assistant guest services manager, Mark Bleasdale, had helped save his life.
And now Keith has been reunited with the trio and thanked them for their incredible efforts.
He said: “Before the incident, I wasn’t feeling unwell or in any pain and I’d even walked around Hollingworth Lake twice that morning, like I do every day, so it was a shock when I woke up in Fairfield General Hospital to find out I’d had a heart attack.
“I had to piece together what had happened from the hospital staff.
“I was released from hospital on Sunday night, at 8am on Monday morning I was on my way to the town centre trying to find the lads who saved my life.
“It was only when I got to the bookies they told me what had gone on.”
Mark said: “While I prepared the equipment, Tony gave Keith CPR and Raja spoke to the emergency services. After using the defibrillator, we managed to keep him breathing and his heart beating until the ambulance arrived.
“We were so glad to hear that Keith was recovering well and then a few weeks later to see him coming into the centre to thank us was amazing.”