A Merseyside headteacher returned to his school today after he suffered a cardiac arrest and collapsed in school.
Nick Sheeran installed the defibrillator at Birkdale Primary School in Southport fearing it would be needed one day for one of his pupils. But when he fell ill at the school himself within just 32 seconds one of his fellow teachers used the life-saving equipment to restart his heart.
Staff at the school were trained in how to use the defibrillator when it was installed after being provided by the Oliver King Foundation. The foundation was started after Liverpool schoolboy Oliver King died when his heart stopped during a swimming lesson in 2011.
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Mark King has since spent the last 11 years getting machines put into schools following the heartbreaking death of his 12-year-old son at King David High School in Childwall. Mr Sheeran is now the 68th person to be saved thanks to a defibrillator provided by the foundation.
Today, Mr Sheeran returned to his beloved school to see the children seven months on from when his heart stopped. Deputy headteacher David Jessop told the BBC: "There was a sense of positiveness about the whole situation.
"There was no negative, there was no 'what's going to happen'. It's only afterwards that you realise the gravity of [it]."
Teacher Naomi Williams said it was "emotional" to see Mr Sheeran on his return. "He comes in and he's back to his usual self and it was nice to see the children's reaction. They've missed him," she said.
The foundation has placed more than 6,000 defibrillators in schools and organisations across the UK since 2012, with the government pledging to install them in all schools by the summer.
Mr King had been at the school to see Mr Sheeran return and said it was "very emotional". He said he was "ecstatic" that a defibrillator the foundation had provided "was there to save his life".
"The kids love him, he's been well missed because he's a massive personality in this school. He's like our Ollie, people just warmed to him."
Mr Sheeran said: "I'm the luckiest head teacher on the planet and so grateful to everyone and the part that they played in saving my life. I'm raring to go."
More than 30,000 people suffer cardiac arrests outside hospital every year in the UK, and just one in 10 of them survives, the Mirror Online reports.
Public defibrillators, which deliver a shock to restart the heart, are used in less than a tenth of cases, according to the British Heart Foundation. Using a defibrillator within five minutes raises the chance of survival by over 40%, research shows.
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