Cardiac arrest survivors exist at every level of public life. The stories below demonstrate something that matters deeply to us at SCA UK: that cardiac arrest can happen to anyone, anywhere, at any time — and that CPR and rapid defibrillation save lives. Every one of the people below is alive because someone acted fast.
Fabrice Muamba
Fabrice was born on April 6th 1988 in Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo. He moved to England when he was 11 years old and progressed to play for England under 21s. Fabrice played for Arsenal, Birmingham City and Bolton Wanderers, the team he was playing for at the time of his cardiac arrest.
On the 17th March 2012, during the televised FA Cup match between Tottenham Hotspur and Bolton Wanderers at White Hart Lane, Fabrice went into ventricular fibrillation in the 43rd minute. He fell, in the words of those watching, “like a tree trunk.” Two defibrillator shocks were administered on the pitch, one in the tunnel, and twelve more in the ambulance. His heart stopped for 78 minutes in total. He was discharged on 16th April having had an ICD fitted, and retired from professional football on the advice of his medical team. Fabrice has since become one of the most prominent voices for cardiac arrest awareness in sport.
Christian Eriksen
On 12 June 2021, Danish international Christian Eriksen collapsed on the pitch during the Euro 2020 match between Denmark and Finland in Copenhagen — watched live by millions across the world. His heart had stopped. Denmark captain Simon Kjaer immediately cleared his airway while medical staff rushed onto the pitch; CPR was initiated within seconds and a single shock from a defibrillator restored his rhythm. He was carried from the field on a stretcher, conscious, and waved to the crowd as he left.
Eriksen was fitted with an ICD and — defying the expectations of most cardiologists — returned to professional football. He joined Brentford in January 2022, signed for Manchester United that summer, and scored for Denmark at Euro 2024, three years almost to the day after his cardiac arrest. His case prompted a surge in CPR awareness and training across Europe and became one of the most widely cited examples of why bystander response and defibrillation save lives. He has been open about his recovery and the psychological journey of returning to the sport he almost died playing. You can read more about his story on the British Heart Foundation website.
David Ginola
In May 2016, former Newcastle United, Tottenham, Aston Villa and Everton winger David Ginola — a player once voted footballer of the year in both France and England — collapsed during a charity football match in the south of France. He was clinically dead for approximately eight minutes. Of the fifteen or so players on the pitch, only one, fellow footballer Frédéric Mendy, knew how to perform CPR. Mendy administered chest compressions for nine minutes until paramedics arrived. The ambulance crew, who found the private football field almost by chance having recognised it from earlier in the day, delivered multiple defibrillator shocks to restore Ginola’s rhythm before he was airlifted to a hospital in Monaco.
He underwent a six-hour quadruple bypass operation. His heart stopped a second time on the operating table. He survived both. Since his recovery, Ginola has become a passionate advocate for CPR training, visiting schools and working with the British Heart Foundation and Newcastle United Foundation to teach defibrillation skills. His message is simple: “If you know about CPR, you need to have a go. No matter what you do, you need to do it because we are talking about saving lives.”
Glenn Hoddle
On 27 October 2018 — his 61st birthday — former England manager and Tottenham legend Glenn Hoddle suffered a cardiac arrest in the BT Sport studios in London. He had just finished appearing as a pundit and collapsed backstage. Simon Daniels, a sound supervisor who was also a trained special constable, heard the commotion, ran to help, and performed CPR for eight and a half minutes until paramedics arrived. A defibrillator was used to shock Hoddle’s heart back into rhythm. He was airlifted to the Royal London Hospital and underwent a quadruple bypass operation. Had the cardiac arrest happened on a golf course earlier that week, or at home, he says he would almost certainly have died.
Hoddle has been open about his recovery and the psychological impact of the experience, describing every day since as “extra time.” He has spoken widely about the importance of CPR training and now has an ICD fitted. His story is a particularly powerful example of why having someone nearby who knows CPR — not a doctor, not a paramedic, just a person with training — can be the entire difference between life and death.
Tom Lockyer
Tom Lockyer, captain of Luton Town FC, collapsed twice in seven months in 2023 — first during the Championship play-off final at Wembley in May, and then again during a Premier League match against Bournemouth in December. The second collapse was a confirmed cardiac arrest. Bournemouth midfielder Philip Billing was the first to reach him and summon assistance; Luton’s medical staff resuscitated him on the pitch in under two minutes. The match was abandoned. He was fitted with an ICD and discharged from hospital four days later.
What makes Lockyer’s story particularly significant is the trajectory that followed. After a long rehabilitation — complicated by two ankle surgeries — he was medically cleared to return to football in October 2025 and signed for Bristol Rovers. He has since become an ambassador for the British Heart Foundation, speaking about the importance of CPR training in football and beyond. Read more about his campaign on the British Heart Foundation website. A Wales international who became Luton’s first Premier League captain, his courage throughout his recovery made him one of the most respected figures in English football.
Charlie Wyke
On 22 November 2021, Wigan Athletic striker Charlie Wyke collapsed during a training session at the club’s training ground. His heart stopped for four and a half minutes. Wigan manager Leam Richardson — who had completed CPR training just three weeks earlier — immediately began chest compressions and kept them going until club doctor Jonathan Tobin took over. That three-week-old training saved Wyke’s life. He was taken to the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary and then transferred to the Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, where he was fitted with an ICD.
Wyke returned to professional football — a remarkable achievement in itself — and has spoken movingly about his experience, including the moment a second ICD shock during training made him realise the full reality of what he was living with. His story is one of the clearest illustrations of why CPR training in workplaces and sports clubs is not a box-ticking exercise. His manager’s three-week-old training saved his life. Dr Jonathan Tobin, who assisted in Wyke’s resuscitation, had previously helped save Fabrice Muamba in 2012.
Bob Odenkirk
In July 2021, American actor Bob Odenkirk — best known for playing Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad and its prequel Better Call Saul — collapsed on set during filming of the show’s final season in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A heart attack had triggered a cardiac arrest. His heart stopped for eighteen minutes. Co-stars Rhea Seehorn and Patrick Fabian, who were nearby, rushed to him and called for help. Health safety supervisor Rosa Estrada performed CPR and retrieved an AED from her car — a device she happened to be returning to a friend, and which happened to be there only because the friend hadn’t been in when she tried to return it earlier. After three defibrillator shocks, Odenkirk’s rhythm was restored. He was taken to hospital and had stents fitted to clear two blocked coronary arteries.
Odenkirk returned to finish filming Better Call Saul five weeks later. He has spoken at length about his experience, crediting CPR with saving his life and describing the role of chance — the AED, the people nearby, the timing — in his survival. He has since become a vocal advocate for CPR awareness, urging people to learn the skill. A known case of plaque buildup in his arteries since 2018 had gone untreated following conflicting medical advice. He later said simply: “If nobody had been there, if they didn’t do that CPR, I’d have been dead in a few minutes.”
Ted Robbins
In January 2015, comedian and actor Ted Robbins suffered a cardiac arrest on stage at Manchester Arena in front of an audience of 10,000 people, while appearing as Den Perry in the Phoenix Nights stage show. A paramedic and a doctor in the audience administered CPR. He was rushed to Wythenshawe Hospital and recovered well, though he suffered broken ribs from the compressions. His sister, Kate Robbins, noted: “People think he’s a big guy so he must have had a heart attack.” He had not. He had an underlying heart valve problem — and had been medically dead in front of thousands of people who initially thought the collapse was part of the act.
Bernard Gallacher
Bernard Gallacher, the former professional golfer who played in eight Ryder Cup competitions and captained Europe three times, suffered a cardiac arrest in August 2013, aged 64, while standing up to give a speech at a golf club in Aberdeen. He was left in a coma for seven days. Two nurses at the event administered CPR and a hotel defibrillator was used before the ambulance arrived. His ICD has fired twice since. His daughter is Sky Sports presenter Kirsty Gallacher. Bernard has led a campaign to raise awareness of the need for defibrillators at golf courses and public venues.
Damar Hamlin
On 2 January 2023, Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest on a Monday Night Football field in Cincinnati, watched live on television by millions of people worldwide. The cause was commotio cordis — a rare phenomenon in which a blunt impact to the chest at a critical moment in the heart’s electrical cycle triggers ventricular fibrillation. Team medical staff reached him within ten seconds, CPR was initiated immediately, and a defibrillator shock restored his rhythm on the field. He was hospitalised in critical condition. Nine days later he was discharged. He returned to professional football the following season.
Though Hamlin is American and his story is rooted in NFL football, its global reach made it one of the most significant cardiac arrest events in recent memory. The incident triggered a massive increase in CPR training and AED awareness across the United States and beyond, and Hamlin himself has become a dedicated advocate — touring communities to teach CPR and fund AED provision through his Chasing M’s Foundation.
Bob Harper
Bob Harper, the American fitness trainer and television host best known from the long-running reality show The Biggest Loser, suffered a cardiac arrest in February 2017 while working out at a gym in New York. He was in elite physical condition. He collapsed mid-workout and was unconscious for two days. He survived because a doctor who happened to be exercising at the same gym began CPR immediately. An AED was used on the scene. He was later diagnosed with familial hypercholesterolaemia — a hereditary condition he had been entirely unaware of.
Harper’s story carries a particular resonance for the survivorship community: here was a man in peak physical fitness, whose entire professional identity was built on health and exercise, felled without warning by an inherited heart condition. It illustrates, as starkly as anything could, that cardiac arrest is not a disease of the unfit or the unhealthy. It can happen to anyone.
If you or someone you love has survived a cardiac arrest, you are not alone. Our community of thousands of survivors and co-survivors understands exactly what this experience is like — because they have lived it too. Join SCA UK and find the support and understanding you deserve. You can also read more on our sequelae page about the after-effects many survivors experience, or visit our ICD section if you or a loved one has recently been fitted with a device.