Martin Haley was dead for seven minutes after he suffered a cardiac arrest mere minutes into his squash match in May but an off duty nurse saved his life by performing CPR and using a defibrillator.
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He is sharing his story ahead of Restart a Heart Day in a bid to teach Tasmanians about the importance of defibrillators and learning CPR.
"...if it wasn't for this nurse I wouldn't be here today," the 58-year-old said.
"I basically died for seven minutes and during that seven minutes I was very lucky I had an accident emergency off duty nurse (nearby) and she performed CPR on me intensely.
"Having a defibrillator and having the CPR is the reason why i'm standing here today so i'm extremely thankful."
Mr Haley did not know CPR before his cardiac arrest but has since learned and he urged others to learn as he said CPR could save a life, as it did his.
His collapse on the squash court had been a wake up call for many of his friends he said, with several of them going for a heart check up and as a result many had had stents put in or undergone a heart operation.
Ambulance Tasmania, the Red Cross and St John Ambulance are offering a number of free events across the state from October 12-19, including a Facebook live demonstration at 7pm, Wednesday, to teach people CPR.
The three organisations are joining forces to teach as many Tasmanians as possible how to learn CPR during the week under the motto - learn to restart a heart, have a go and help save a life.
Ambulance Tasmania's patient safety officer Michael Weeding said Mr Haley would have had a dramatically different outcome if the off duty nurse did not perform CPR.
"Survivability decreases by approximately seven to 10 per cent per minute if nobody is doing anything in the setting of a cardiac arrest, so it is incredibly important that people intervene and have a go, you may just save a life," he said.
"One of the things that unfortunately we do see all too often is we turn up to events where bystanders are not performing CPR and that may be out of fear or some concern that they're going to cause harm.
"I think one of the key issues to get across is that this is not the case, all you can do is help this particular person, get in, have a go, save a life."
Visit www.health.tas.gov.au/restartaheartday to find a CPR tutorial near you.