CHRIS Burton returned to scene of his heart attack today to personally thank the people who saved his life.

Two months after he collapsed at the wheel of his van at a building site in Coalway, the 50-year-old landscape gardener met a Coalway resident who raised the alarm and the decorator and the paramedic who revived him.

Paul Stevens, 37 was one of the first on the scene. He moved into a new Two Rivers Housing home at Poppy Fields at Christmas and was working on the site when the drama unfolded on 18 January.

“I saw Tiffany Prosser shouting out that a man in a van had stopped breathing. I sprinted over and saw he was slumped over the steering wheel,” he explained.

“I pulled him out of the cab and laid him on the floor and started giving cardiopulmonary resuscitation before the paramedic arrived. "I was worried because I could feel Chris’s ribs cracking.”

After about 15 minutes and the use of a defibrillator, Paul Nicholls, of South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust got Chris’s heartbeat back and accompanied him to Bristol Hospital.

Chris, who lives in Lydbrook said: “I don’t remember anything of what happened on that day, but I’m starting to piece things together from what I’ve been told.

“The people who helped to save my life should be recognised for what they did.”