A QUICK-thinking porter at a Hampshire hospital used CPR to save his colleague’s life.

John Bauldry was just about to start a shift moving patients and vital equipment around the Royal Hampshire County Hospital (RHCH) in Winchester when, without any warning, he suffered a cardiac arrest in the staff room.

On seeing his friend collapsed on the floor, Daniel Spacagna, from Eastleigh, immediately took control of the situation, instructing another of his colleagues to put in an emergency call before tending to John.

Daniel said: “When I put my ear to his face, I could tell he had stopped breathing.

“I realised he must have had a cardiac arrest and started performing CPR. The adrenaline just kicked in. John is a friend as well as a colleague and I was determined to keep going because I didn’t want it ending the other way. I just did what I needed to do and the doctors said I had kept up a good rhythm.”

Daniel’s initiative kept John alive during the time it took for the emergency medical team to arrive on the scene.

A defibrillator was used to restart John’s heart and he was treated in the emergency department and intensive care unit at the hospital before being transferred to the specialist coronary care unit at Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital, where a device was fitted to prevent the same thing happening again.

John, 60, spent eight days on the unit before being allowed to return to his home in Hamble and he returned to work at the end of September, just two months after his near-death experience.

He said: “If somebody saves your life, there’s no way you can ever say ‘thank you’ enough.

“I’m not one for sitting around so I could not wait to get back to work and it’s going really well.

“There is certainly a special bond between Daniel and me now.”

Daniel, 35, added: “When I think about what I was able to do for John, it really makes me proud. We come to work to make a difference and care for patients and I really did make a difference that day.

“I’ve done quite a few first aid courses, but fortunately I’d been on one through work about four weeks before the incident, so it was really fresh in my mind.

“It just shows how important doing first aid courses can be. You never know when you are going to need to use the skills.”