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A retired ex-soldier whose heart stopped on a trip to the bookies has spoken of his gratitude to the young dad who saved his life.

Jim Shannon, 67, says he cannot remember leaving his flat in the minutes before he suffered a cardiac arrest and collapsed on Linacre Road, Litherland - from which he did not wake up for four days.

Luckily for Mr Shannon, ocean freight worker Christopher Massingham had nipped to the local shop to buy mushrooms for a chicken and bacon pasta dinner, when he heard the sound of the pensioner hitting the ground, on the evening of Saturday, February 23.

Mr Massingham, 26, of nearby Riddock Road, performed CPR for nearly half an hour despite having never undergone first-aid training.

Now, dad-of-four and granddad-of-six Mr Shannon, says he wants to meet his saviour when he is discharged from hospital and buy him "a load of drinks."

Speaking from his hospital bed, Mr Shannon told the ECHO: "I will give him a big hug and say thanks a lot mate. There's not really a lot you can say is there?

"He could have just walked past if he wanted to, it's incredible. To me the worst thing about it is if it had not worked he wouldn't have felt very good."

Speaking the day after the incident, Mr Massingham told the ECHO: "I was coming out of the shop, there was a noise and I looked to the opposite side of the road and there was two women standing over a man lying on the floor.

"I went over, one of them rang an ambulance and said 'check if he is breathing'. When I realised he wasn't breathing, it was just panic. It looked like his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth, so at first I thought he was drunk, but there was no smell of alcohol so I knew something was seriously wrong."

Mr Massingham, who moved to his home with his partner and new born son only a week before the incident, said the paramedics asked him to continue CPR while they treated Mr Shannon.

(Image: Christopher Massingham)

"It hasn't really sunk in. It was pretty intense, at one point I'm sure I felt his rib crack and that was harrowing.

"My palms are still aching. I am just glad I had a tea that needed mushrooms."

'Looking at the way it all happened I never even made it to the betting shop'

Mr Shannon, who spent four years in the Irish Guards in the 1970s before working as a tyre fitter and then in security, says he has undergone first aid training and recognises the massive effort required for CPR.

He said: "I remember absolutely nothing. Looking back and putting it all together I don't even remember leaving my flat.

"I know I was going to put a bet on. Looking at the way it all happened I never even made it to the betting shop."

Mr Shannon, who lives alone, says he was only around "two bus stops" from his home when his heart stopped, near the Chung Lok takeaway.

(Image: Donna Galbraith)

"If it had happened any earlier I would have been killed," he said. "My doctor said my heart was like a clock winding down to zero. I felt fine that day, I didn't feel ill, it does scare me."

"It's the kids and the grandkids really, it's not just about me."

Mr Shannon says he did not wake up until Wednesday.

"I just thought I had been in bed, it didn't think it had been four days. To have no memory, it scares me a lot."

Mr Shannon is in the Royal Liverpool Hospital, after initially being treated at Broadgreen Heart and Chest Hospital, and is expected to make a full recovery.

He said: "I have a lot of pain from my ribs because of the chest compressions but I will take that. The scans showed my heart hasn't actually had much scarring so I should be able to go home soon."

The British Heart Foundation has advice on how to perform CPR here.