Back from the dead!

The 76-year-old had stopped breathing for more than two minutes after he collapsed in the street within yards of Blackburn Royal Infirmary.

Within seconds Dr Elizabeth Preston and Dr Michael Mason, who were taking a short break from their jobs as house officers at the hospital, were on the scene to help the stricken pensioner.

They gave Rovers fan Mr Walkden mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and heart massage in a desperate bid to revive him. Passer-by Doug Hargreaves, of Feniscowles, then rushed into the infirmary to summon help. Ambulance technician Colin Willis and paramedic Mark Taylor, from Accrington station, who were in the area at the time then joined the life-saving effort in Infirmary Road.

They helped to wheel the pensioner on a stretcher up the road and into the hospital casualty department.

Within 30 minutes Mr Walkden, a father-of-two, was sat up in the coronary care unit, laughing and joking.

Mr Walkden, a former ROF worker who lives at Ewood, said: "I am very grateful to the medical staff. The service I have had has been second-to-none.

"I don't remember anything except waking up with doctors and nurses around me. I suppose it was the best place for something like this to happen."

Mr Willis said: "We wheeled the patient about 400 yards up the street. It must have looked quite a scene."

Doctors are still carrying out tests to see what caused Mr Walkden to collapse. Initially it was thought he had suffered a heart attack, but that has been ruled out.

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