A man who died 'for 20 seconds' before being brought back to life by doctors has thanked the stranger who stopped to take him to hospital.
Gary Walton had a heart attack on the side of the road last Monday (September 26) before going into cardiac arrest, and believes he has only lived to tell the tale because of the selflessness of a passing stranger.
As he was driving towards Barnoldswick, Lancashire, for work, the 63-year-old started to feel unwell and pulled over twice. However, it was the third time he pulled over that things would take a turn for the worse, he told Lancs Live.
"On the third time I had to pull over, I quickly found myself lying on the floor in the recovery position," Gary, 63, explained. "Due to my symptoms, I thought I could be having a heart attack and so I called the ambulance and thought, if I'm wrong then fine but it can't hurt to check.
"I made the call and they asked what service I needed, as soon as I said 'ambulance', they put me in a queue. However, this was only about 30 seconds before I got through to the service. They were asking me where I was and of course I knew, but I just wasn't sure exactly."
Gary had suffered a heart attack on Simonstone Road, when he was travelling between Altham and Read in the Hyndburn area. Although he was unsure of his exact whereabouts to tell the dispatcher on the phone, he tried his best to get attention from others on the road.
Gary said: "I was virtually on my knees as I couldn't walk properly and I tried to wave two cars down and got ignored. You sort of expect it to a certain extent, because there was a man in his work clothes trying to flag people down. However, I was soon getting desperate, so I turned around and luckily for me, there was a car on the other side of the road.
"I was now in the middle of the road with my hand out and the car pulled over. All I could say was 'help, I think I'm having a heart attack'."
Gary's saviour turned out to be a stranger named Mary who took the phone from him and spoke with the ambulance service on the other end. Unfortunately, she was also unable to locate their exact whereabouts and instead put Gary in the back of her car to find someone nearby.
Luckily, they stumbled across a window cleaner who informed them they were on Simonstone Lane, as well as the number of the house they were parked in front of.
"Mary selflessly put me in the back of her car, but she must have been petrified," Gary said. "Having a man jump in the back of her car, in agony - she didn't have a clue what was going on and I could have been on anything. She kindly helped me though, but the ambulance service said it would 45 minutes before anyone could come out to me.
"Mary screamed down the phone, telling them I was sweating, I had pains all over and pains down my arm - saying I'm probably having a heart attack. They suggested that we go to the hospital, but Mary was saying we didn't know each other, but as quick as anything, she did a three-point turn and took me there."
Mary took Gary to hospital where they found an ambulance driver outside A&E. He helped the duo and immediately put Gary in a wheelchair. Gary says within five minutes of arrival, his heart attack had turned into a cardiac arrest.
He said: "We got there and my situation got worse, I actually left this Earth for 20 seconds and they had to shock me twice to get me to come back around. It was like a scene from ER - there was about 15 people surrounding me and thankfully, I was taken into surgery where I had stents put in."
Although Gary had a death scare, he remembers everything that happened to him on that fateful day. What he couldn't remember however, was who had helped him. In the hospital, he asked one of the nurses to find out who it was that took him to the hospital and saved his life. The only details he could remember was that she "could have been called Mary" and that she was driving a "little red car."
As the nurse came back with no information, Gary's wife, Selina took to Facebook to try and find her. The post went viral, garnering 4,000 likes in 24 hours and was circulating for days. On Friday (September 30) Selina received a message that would bring Gary back to his selfless stranger.
Gary said: "With luck, on the Friday night, right before we were about to go to bed, my wife got a message on her phone. It was Mary saying she was glad her husband was OK and telling us good luck for the future. I recognised her as soon as I saw her profile and I said, we can't just leave it there. Hopefully I'm going to meet her at some point this week and give her a big bunch of flowers and just say a huge thank you.
"It was luck for me on that day - it just so happens that all the timings were right with us going to the hospital and the theatre being emptied just as we got there. She was my angel in disguise."
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