Off-duty doctor saves bike crash man

AN accident and emergency doctor has told how she helped to restart a cyclist’s heart after a serious crash when she was off-duty.

Dr Lizzie Heptinstall, pictured, was returning from watching the Boat Race with friends when she heard a passer-by crying out for a doctor near the Sun Inn in Barnes. They found a cyclist lying in the road after a collision with a Land Rover. Ms Heptinstall, an A&E registrar at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, said she and friend Mike Crofts, an Army officer, were lagging behind their group when they came across the scene.

“Normally when you hear this kind of thing, it’s nothing particularly serious. But this guy was clearly in a lot of trouble. He had no heartbeat,” she said.

An anaesthetist and a police officer, both off-duty, also helped the victim.

Ms Heptinstall, 30, said: “We rolled him onto his back to protect his neck, then performed CPR while the anaesthetist, who had arrived on the scene earlier, helped.

“The man’s heart only restarted after two rounds of CPR.”

The anaesthetist, who has not been identified, played a “huge part” in his recovery and deserved “massive praise for her help and dedication,” said Ms Heptinstall. She added: “I feel awfully proud to been part of an ad hoc team that worked so well together.”

London Ambulance Service said: “We were called at 6.19pm to Church Road, Barnes to reports of a road traffic collision. We sent a number of resources to the scene including an ambulance crew, duty station officer and London’s Air Ambulance. We treated a man in cardiac arrest, and he was taken to St George’s Hospital [Tooting].”

Police were not called to the incident last Saturday. The cyclist has now been discharged from hospital.