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Ten years ago, Joao Araujo’s eyes rolled in towards the back of his head and his hands clenched rigidly around the gear stick and steering wheel.

Mr Araujo had been on verge of pulling out of his house on Slaney Street, in the process of taking his wife, Grazielle, to work that morning.

She turned to face him and in horror saw that his tongue was turning over in to the back of his throat.

She grabbed his phone and slammed it between his tongue and the roof of his mouth to prevent his tongue flipping any further backwards. She exited the car and screamed for help.

A neighbour travelling down the Tredworth Road noticed her and called for an ambulance.

The paramedics arrived and determined that the Portuguese man was suffering a cardiac arrest and rushed him to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital.

(Image: SIMON PIZZEY)

Doctors treated him, using all the equipment at their disposal to get the 38-year-old’s heart beating correctly again.

After six hours, all the shots and injections were deemed futile. CPR had been unsuccessful.

They pronounced Mr Araujo dead at approximately 4pm on Saturday, April 18, 2009.

His wife and children were told that he was dead and they phoned his parents in Portugal to give them the sad news.

However, as the nurses were transporting his body from intensive care towards the mortuary, they noticed movement in his body.

It had been 21 minutes before circulation had spontaneously returned to Mr Araujo’s heart.

Dr Mark Petersen, the Chief of the Cardiology Unit, rushed towards the family and told them the good news.

(Image: SIMON PIZZEY)

But he warned that if a person is dead for longer than four minutes then there would be permanent damage to the brain since there was no oxygen accessing the brain in that time.

He remained in a coma for three days.

When he woke up, a new nickname had been coined for him by the staff.

“When I was at the hospital, they had no explanation for my problem so people started calling me the 'Miracle Man'.”

After he woke up, they asked him a series of simple questions like his name, age and who his family members were but he gave illogical answers. His brain could not process the correct information.

He was confused about why he was in the hospital, telling visitors and staff that he merely had a throat problem.

(Image: SIMON PIZZEY)

He rejected interviews from journalists, by crying out: “No! I don’t want to be famous, I don’t want to go on Big Brother!”

He was put in a separate room and disconnected himself from all of the cables connecting him to the various machines so that he could take a shower. The staff rushed in, since this had set off all the emergency alarms, saw the bed was empty and were confused at where the patient had gone.

He didn’t recognise his best friend each time he came to visit regularly and would press the emergency button each time he arrived.

Throughout this time, in total a two-week period, he has no recollection of the events that occurred. However, in the second week his condition began rapidly improving.

When he regained his wits, Dr Petersen sent him to hospitals in Bristol and Oxford to determine what had caused his attack and ultimate resurgence.

A panel of seven doctors told Mr Araujo that there was no explanation as he had no prior history of heart problems and was in good shape for his age.

Nevertheless, the most popular theory was that his brain had not sent the correct signal to his heart.

“Unlike everything else in the body below the eyes, they said that the brain is a mystery, it’s like a Pandora’s Box,” said Mr Araujo. “They did not have the knowledge to know the reason behind what happened.”

He was fitted with an ICD (Implantable cardioverter defibrillator) box against his heart. This device is programmed to send an electric shock through to his heart if his heart ever stops again. It also monitors his heart rate and sends readings back to the hospital.

(Image: SIMON PIZZEY)

He was dispatched and told to carry on with his life normally.

“I remember that my son and wife asked if I could carry on watching the football – because I am crazy for football!”

His doctor told the family that watching the football is good for the heart since it’s an emotional activity. Dr Peterson saw no problems with Mr Araujo’s heart and even recommended that he should continue being active.

(Image: Joao Araujo)

Within three weeks of the attack Mr Araujo was back to work. He had been working as a lorry driver but had his driving licence stripped for a year, so the Cheltenham company Clean (named Paragon at the time) employed him in their factory.

This was not the first time Mr Araujo had made a miraculous recovery.

In 2005, he had a crash in Cuenca, Spain which left him with a broken femur, pelvis, four ribs and shoulder blade. He also suffered 90 per cent blood loss, damaging his pancreas and liver.

Doctors said that he would never survive the operation. He survived the operation. Then doctors said that he would never walk or move his arms again. He has scars all over his body from the injuries. “I call these my tattoos” he said.

Mr Araujo, 48, is now a local postman and lives with his family and a new partner in Linden, Gloucester.

He visits the cardiology ward every six months for a check-up and is still known by the staff as the Miracle Man.

“Every time I go back, the nurses and the people who work there go 'The Miracle Man is back!' Even people I don’t know or recognise from different areas of the hospital say 'It’s the Miracle Man! Everybody knows you, you are famous!'"

The postman has had only one issue with his heart since the original attack. In 2015, he collapsed while working as a delivery driver in Abergavenny. He then got back up to his feet and continued a full day's work, drove back to Gloucester, took a shower and then went to A&E. His boss called him crazy.

The correct thing for Mr Araujo to do would have been to have remained on the floor and waited for the emergency services.

"The doctors said that I have too much energy. It doesn't matter if I am in too much pain, I carry on."

The doctors prescribed him Bisoprolol to lower his heart rate.

Reflecting on how his death had effected him, the Miracle Man says definitively: "It changed me.

"I give more value to all the things every day. Every single day. I say thank you to God that I am alive, I say thank you to God that I have a job. I give more value to my family and my friends."