A NEWPORT man has said he 'owes his life' to two complete strangers who leapt to his aid when he suffered from a cardiac arrest.

Lee Maher was playing football in Bettws in August last year when he began complaining of tightness in his chest.

He decided to return to his car - and there he suffered a cardiac arrest.

Luckily, Dave Colclough and Rhys Lane had booked the next slot to play on the pitch and noticed Mr Maher when passing his car.

Upon realising what was happening, they pulled him out of the car and Mr Colclough began to administer CPR while Mr Lane phoned 999.

"I didn’t know the two lads from Adam," said Mr Maher.

"Both were amazing. If it wasn’t for those two, I’d be gone.

"I owe my life to them."

He explained that his survival had been made all the more extraordinary by the fact that Mr Colclough and Mr Lane had only changed their football slot to coincide with Mr Maher's at the last minute.

"It was a miracle," he said.

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Mr Colclough said he had been just about to drive off, but "something made me go back and check".

He carried out CPR for six minutes until the ambulance arrived and the paramedics told him to continue.

"It was horrible," he said,

"I was in shock afterwards.

"If we had gone to football at the normal time, we wouldn’t have seen him."

What's more, Mr Colclough had only relatively recently learnt CPR - after the loss of his father around a year previously.

"Once again, a miracle," said Mr Maher.

"They’re two kind, lovely blokes.

"I want to take them out for a meal, but can’t because of Covid."

Paramedics used a defibrillator several times to restart Mr Maher's heart.

He was taken first to the Royal Gwent Hospital and then to the Heath Hospital in Cardiff, where he was fitted with a stent.

However, Mr Maher's ordeal was not over.

He contracted ventilator acquired pneumonia and also suffered kidney failure.

Mr Maher underwent a tracheotomy to aid his breathing, and was in an induced coma for nearly two months.

The cause of his cardiac arrest was never identified, but Mr Maher is now undergoing rehabilitation.

"I started out with a zimmer frame as I'd lost a lot of muscle mass," he said.

Mr Maher's daughter, Louise, said: "We owe everything to Dave and Rhys as, if it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t have my dad."