Warning after woman suddenly collapsed in walk

A woman who suffered a sudden cardiac arrest while on a walk is urging more people to learn life-saving CPR skills.

Ruth Harvey suddenly dropped to the floor in Salisbury, Wiltshire, while out with her partner Simon Parker. He realised she was experiencing a cardiac arrest and performed CPR, which kept her alive until paramedics reached them.

Parker has warned without his previous training the outcome could have been very different.

The mother-of-two, who lives in Taunton, Somerset, said: "They [doctors] estimated 25 minutes after I had the cardiac arrest they could feel a pulse again - and this was just with them doing CPR."

According to SCA UK, which provides after care for people who have experienced a sudden cardiac arrests and their families, there are about 34,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in England every year - but fewer than 10% survive.

Anyone who needs to immediately act after someone suffers a sudden cardiac arrest must call 999, start CPR and use a defibrillator.

Parker, 54, told BBC Radio Somerset he did not initially understand Harvey had a sudden cardiac arrest and took him "a little while to figure out what happened" before he tried to revive her.

"A couple of people round the corner then came and helped," he said.

"I started to do CPR and it had been a really long time I had been trained.

"I was in the process of remembering how to do that when luckily the people who walked around the corner and got through to the ambulance.

"They then helped me with what to do."

Parker added: "Being able to have that training and know I know what to do. There's something I can do which makes such a difference."

Harvey, 55, said she woke up in hospital days after the incident which happened in 2021, after she was rushed to intensive care and doctors still can not explain why it happened.

Gareth Cole, a trustee at SCA UK, said CPR is the most important thing to know when someone suffers a sudden cardiac arrest.

He said: "It [CPR] will buy time. It will give the patient and element of blood flow around their body.

There is "zero chance of survival" without CPR, and most cardiac arrests happen within the home, he added.

"The overwhelming odds are people will be performing CPR on a family member or a friend," he said

The British Heart Foundation a free online training tool for people to learn CPR which takes 15 minutes.

Follow BBC Somerset on Facebook and X. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630.