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 Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester when, without 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.

“I just did what I needed to do.”

Daniel’s initiative kept John alive before the emergency medical team arrived on 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, where a device was fitted to prevent it 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. All of us porters are a bit like a family, but there is certainly a special bond between Daniel and me now.

“I’m incredibly grateful to him and I know my family are as well.”

Daniel, 35, added: “When I think about what I was able to do for John, it really makes me proud.”