A man cheated death after he was stuck on a mountain and his heart stopped beating for three hours.
Tommy Price, 27, was climbing Blencathra in the English Lake District, England, with a friend on January 6 in freezing conditions.
As he began ascending the mountain, he started to feel “delirious”, Manchester Evening News reports.
As his body temperature began to plummet, Tommy, who works as a lifeguard, went into cardiac arrest.
He said: “I can’t remember anything from the run. I tried to stand up and fell 10 metres, it was blizzard conditions so I couldn’t see anything.”
His friend, Max, was forced to leave him on the mountainside so he could go and find help at the bottom of the slope.
The 27-year-old added: “It took one hour and 15 minutes for the mountain rescue team to reach me. They found me lying there lifeless; I had severe hypothermia. They gave me three electric shocks and were doing CPR until we went into the helicopter.”
Paramedics rushed him to the hospital via air ambulance and on arrival, his core body temperature read 18C.
He fell into a five-day coma and when he woke up, he didn’t have any memory of what had happened.
He revealed: “My heart started again and it was a waiting game then because I could have gone back into cardiac arrest.
“I could have lost a leg. I woke up in the intensive care unit – I didn’t know what had happened. I thought I had been in a car crash or something. My first memory was the two days previous.
“I’m lucky to be alive. I was in cardiac arrest for three hours – my heart stopped for three hours. The doctor said he was finding it hard to find a positive outcome for me. He didn’t think I was going to make it.”
Aside from sustaining nerve damage in his hands and feet, Tommy has since made a full recovery.
In a post, the Keswick Mountain Rescue Team, who saved Tommy’s life, said: “Five months on and the man who miraculously cheated death is making a very good recovery and has even managed some decent runs.
“This was one of the lowest body temperatures from which someone has survived – a truly remarkable survival story and a testament to the professionalism of all involved.”
