A GWENT AM is recovering in hospital after suffering a cardiac arrest.

Blaenau Gwent AM Alun Davies has said he collapsed without warning while out for a jog in Cardiff's Bute Park on Friday evening.

Writing on his personal blog, Mr Davies - one of only a handful of AMs elected when the Assembly was established in 1999 to still be serving in Cardiff Bay - said he gad been planning on driving from Cardiff, where he had been working, to Trefil to take a jog - but decided to first go for a run in Bute Park.

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"That unthinking decision saved my life.”

The Labour AM said he had met two friends while in the park and, while talking to them, collapsed.

“Apparently – and I have no memory of this – I stopped and took a breath, said hello, and then collapsed," he said. "I know because of the cuts and bruises on my head and face that the collapse was total and immediate.

"It turns out that I had suffered a cardiac arrest. At that moment my heart had simply stopped beating. It had ceased to function. The most reliable pump that nature has ever constructed simply stopped working.

"There was no notice. No pain. I had no indication either during the day or previous days that there was anything wrong. I felt fine. I actually thought that it was a pretty good run. No record-breaker but not overly difficult either.”

Although he has no memory of the incident, Mr Davies said he was told the ambulance arrived quickly, while another passer-by retrieved a defibrillator after being guided by the 999 operator his friends had called.

He ends his post by thanking the NHS, everyone who had helped and people who had sent well wishes.

“And a few days later I’m sitting here in hospital and writing these words," he said. "We all talk about the NHS and it may well have its faults, but at a time when it is dealing with the biggest health crisis in our lifetimes it can also save the life of an overweight middle-aged man with a vision of himself as championship middle-distance runner.

"The best way to give thanks of course is not to waste the gift that has been given. Mike and Thoma (the friends he had met in the park), the paramedics and the staff in the Heath Hospital have given me the gift of life for a few more years.

"Overwhelming I’m feeling a profound sense of gratitude to everyone who stopped to help, friends who have texted and contacted me over the last days and to all those people who took care of me in hospital. Together they have saved my life and enabled me to write about this.”