By Izzy Hawksworth and Lois Dean via SWNS
A son has saved his dad’s life after he performed CPR on him after he had ten cardiac arrests while playing squash.
Greg Herriott, 35, was playing the sport with his dad Paul Herriott, 70, when Paul suddenly blacked out and slid down the wall.
The dad and son duo were alone in the squash court at the time and Greg started to perform CPR on Paul for 14 minutes while calling 999.
Emergency service staff then contacted a receptionist from the leisure center in Frodsham, Cheshire, who brought a defibrillator to the scene.
Greg then used the defibrillator on his dad around four times.
Paul suffered ten cardiac arrests and multiple complications such as post cardiac arrest syndrome and right-sided heart failure.
He also had internal bleeding, broken ribs, and congested liver.
Paul, who has always been fit and healthy, said: “If he wasn’t there, I would be dead.
“I thank him for his knowledge, his foresight and his determination.”
Greg, a former police officer, added that he has done “CPR many times before” but never expected to do it on his own dad.
He said: “It is just lucky that the stars aligned because I had just come out of hospital myself for mental health reasons and a week later is when it happened.
“So it was lucky that I was out and lucky that he was playing with me because I have done CPR many times before.
“I was actually wanting to play squash on the Saturday rather than playing on the Friday, but my dad was adamant that we were going to play on Friday.
“So who knows, if we played on the Saturday and he had the heart attack on the Friday, I wouldn’t have been there.
“I also wanted to finish earlier because I was knackered after playing and he said ‘no. one more game’.
“If we would have left when he said, he would have been driving me home and had a heart attack and it could have been disastrous.
“Everything just sort of aligned.
“Doing CPR on my own dad was something that I’d never wish on anyone.”
Paul had been suffering from chest pains before the incident, but he put this down to exercises he does with weights and resistance bands each morning.
But during the match on August 16, Paul’s chest pains seemed to be ‘slightly worse’ than previously.
Greg, of Frodsham, Cheshire, said: “On the very first game he was saying his chest was a bit tight.
“He was saying it was probably because he had been doing some light resistance band exercises.
“After every game he was clutching his chest and I was saying ‘are you okay? I think we should stop’, and he was saying no it is fine I’ve probably just pulled a muscle.
“It wasn’t fine, he was actually having a heart attack at that time, we later found out.”
Paul, of Grappenhall, Cheshire, was then taken to Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital where he spent a few weeks recovering before he returned home on September 3.
He is recovering well and aims to get back to his dog walking business.
Greg said: “What was quite funny was the first thing that he said once he came back to consciousness was, “Did I win?”
“He lost four games to two, but as I keep saying to him, he had been playing while having a heart attack.”
