A father who was clinically dead after suffering a heart attack behind the wheel is alive today thanks to a group of strangers who refused to give up on him.
Darren Riley suffered a heart attack behind the wheel on the Gold Coast Highway at Tallebudgera on Tuesday before his car crashed into a parked vehicle and become wedged down an embankment.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Strangers save Gold Coast driver after heart attack
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Smoke was pouring from Riley’s car as Lachie Davies drove past, did a u-turn and pulled over to help.
“I saw this car just going haywire on the road,” he told 7NEWS.
When he reached the crash site, two construction workers had already smashed a window of the locked car and were pulling Riley from the wreck.
“Darren was blue and just lifeless, like no life in his body,” Davies said.
While others immediately began CPR, Davies sprinted about 100 metres to a nearby tourist park to grab an automated external defibrillator (AED), despite never having used one before.
“I’ve honestly watched so much Bondi Rescue. They always just say, ‘Defib, defib,” he said.
“I just ran in, I said, There’s someone dead out front, I need a Defib.
“And then they were like, there’s one right there, one right there.
“I quickly grabbed the Defib and ran back to this man all while still trying to talk to the ambulance on the phone.
“We quickly applied the patches on the man and let the Defib do its thing, after shocking him four times and 12 minutes of CPR the ambulance finally arrived,” he said.
Paramedics arrived and administered another two shocks to Riley’s heart.
“At around the 16 minute mark and after two more shocks and four more minutes of CPR they stopped CPR as he was breathing (assisted) on his own and had a steady heart rate,” Davies recalled.
Davies said about 10 strangers all played a role in saving Riley’s life.
“I think the biggest thing is we brought him back to life, but it wasn’t just one person,” he said.
“There were 10 people involved in helping bring Darren back to life and they all played their crucial part.”
The group included the two construction workers who found Darren unconscious and slumped over the steering wheel inside his locked car.
After smashing a window, one climbed through the opening to try to put the vehicle into park as its wheels continued spinning.
The pair to unlocked the doors and dragged Darren to safety.
They were joined by two Titans NRLW players, a nurse and several other bystanders, who took turns performing CPR until paramedics arrived.
Doctors later inserted a stent to unblock one of Riley’s arteries after he was revived.
“They said I was shocked six times,” Riley said.
“I said, ‘Is that bad?’ He said, ‘Yeah, they don’t normally come back from six’.
“I’m a very very lucky man… very lucky man.”
Riley said he has no memory of the rescue and only woke in an ambulance to learn how close he had come to dying.
“I feel like I just tried to go to footy and someone’s smashed my chest,” he said.
Still recovering in hospital, Riley on Thursday met Davies and several of the strangers he credits with giving him “a new lease on life”.
“Thanks for saving my life, mate,” he told Davis.
“The community needs people like this, you know, that will get in there and help them when someone’s in crisis.
“Like these guys I’ve never met before in my life. Never.
“Remarkable. Absolutely remarkable.”
For Riley, there were no warning signs before the heart attack.
“There were no signs, nothing, just waking up in an ambulance being told he was in a really bad way and very lucky to be alive,” Davies said.
After visiting Darren in hospital, Davies learned the father of two had been “going through a bit of a rough stage” and did not have insurance on the car he crashed during the medical emergency.
He launched a GoFundMe to help Riley get back on his feet.
“Please, everyone out there, hug your loved ones. You never know what is around the corner,” he said.
Riley said his rescuers had become “friends for life”.
“They won’t get rid of me.”
Riley has since pledged to use any money left over after repairing his car for more defibrillators.
“Any excess money that I don’t need to put my car on the road, I’ll be putting defibs in somewhere down the Gold Coast,” he said.
“They’ve given me back my life and my kids their father.”
