ReutersFormer Wales footballer Tom Lockyer has been reunited with the medical staff who saved his life when he suffered a cardiac arrest on the pitch.
The 30-year-old defender was captaining Luton Town in a Premier League match at Bournemouth on 16 December 2023 when he collapsed mid-game.
His heart stopped, but was restarted by paramedics from the South Western Ambulance Service after just two minutes and 41 seconds.
Meeting paramedics Dean Fernee and Abbey Clarke at Bournemouth’s Vitality Stadium, Lockyer said: “I had my heroes on that night.”
“You weren’t responding to anything that we asked of you. Thankfully because everyone was there as a team so quickly we were able to act so quickly,” he told Lockyer.
For the first time, Lockyer was told it was standard practice for away team medics to brief their home counterparts on any issues with players.
So the Bournemouth medics were also very quick to suspect that it was a heart problem.
The 16-cap Wales player remembers waking up after the defibrillator was used and could hear people talking to him, but was unable to respond.
He said: “I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak. I was thinking ‘I’m good’ but nothing was coming out.
“I remember in that moment thinking ‘I could be dying here’, which is obviously not a nice feeling to have.”
He remembers wanting to get up to let the crowd, which included his dad and his girlfriend – who was seven months pregnant – that he was alright.
ReutersMr Fernee recalled how quiet the 11,000 fans were: “There wasn’t a realisation of the crowd until we carried you off. That’s when it hit home that everyone was there.”
Ms Clarke added: “You just crack on and get your head down and ultimately it was Tom in front of us, he’s still a patient and we’ve got to ignore everyone else around us and we just need to give him the life-saving care that he required at the time.”
Cardiff-born Lockyer – who now has a small defibrillator implanted in his chest should he have another cardiac arrest – has not been able to return to playing since damaging ankle ligaments just one week before he was due to return to action for the first time since collapsing.
He admits his life has changed, telling BBC Breakfast: “After what happened it was quite hard mentally, because for 20 years I had been Tom Lockyer the footballer, and that was snatched away from me overnight.
“I didn’t really know what to do with myself, who I really was, it was a bit of an identity crisis.”
Lockyer is now an ambassador for the British Heart Foundation and is passionate about promoting resuscitation training, saying it takes 15 minutes to visit the charity’s website and learn what to do.
He said: “I had my heroes on that night, but you can be a hero for someone you love and don’t let 15 minutes of your time stop that from happening.
“You can literally save someone’s life and the likelihood is it will probably be someone you know and love.”
It was a team of strangers, albeit highly trained and motivated, who treated Lockyer that night and he is a living, breathing example of what a rapid response can achieve.
