A BRITISH man whose heart stopped for three-and-a-half hours was brought back to life by a machine that performed 20,000 life-saving chest compressions.

Engineer Arun Bhasin, 53, was found lying unconscious in Croydon, south London, in December in temperatures of -10 degrees Celsius after falling in the street and hitting his head.

He was rushed to the hospital, but he suffered a cardiac arrest, British newspaper the Daily Mirror reported yesterday.

Luckily, he had been taken to the Croydon University Hospital where two of the UK's top experts in resuscitation - Dr. Nigel Raghunath and Dr. Russell Metcalfe-Smith - are based.

They put Bhasin on a pioneering new CPR machine, AutoPulse, which performed almost 20,000 life-saving chest compressions to keep his heart and lungs functioning.

Raghunath said, "He was pretty much dead in that he had no pulse or heartbeat for three-and-a-half hours so it is amazing that we got him back. I've not seen anything like it in 15 years in A&E [Emergency Room]."

Bhasin said, "I should be dead. I can't believe they kept me alive for so long. It's a miracle. They are amazing people and I know I am very, very lucky."