Chatteris family's praise for off-duty nurse who saved the life of a man found collapsed in the street

A family from Chatteris has praised the quick thinking of an off-duty nurse whose actions saved their relative’s life.

Miroslaw Dziadosz (54) suffered a cardiac arrest and collapsed to the ground just moments after getting on his bike during a shopping trip.

Fortunately, also out shopping was Claire Chapman, a deputy sister in cardiology, who saw Mr Dziadosz on the floor and rushed to help and immediately began performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on Mr Dziadosz.

She administered CPR for eight minutes before Mr Dziadosz regained consciouness and began breathing again.

Claire, a cardiology nurse from Royal Papworth Hospital, said: “I had just been shopping for tea that night and saw a big gathering of people as I left the store.

"I went over and saw that someone had collapsed, checked his pulse – which wasn’t there – and saw that all the colour was drained from his face.

“Instinct kicked in and I went into auto pilot, performing CPR in rotation with a couple of other people and we managed to get Mr Dziadosz breathing again.”

The emergency happened in St Ives on June 21.

Claire has worked on the cardiology wards at Royal Papworth for 12 years where she looks after patients who have had treatment for cardiac arrests, heart attacks and angina, including coronary stent insertion and pacemaker implants.

When she returned to work the following day, she was reunited with Miroslaw and his family on the ward as he began his recovery.

She said: “His son, daughter-in-law and their one-year old baby were on the ward visiting and they spotted me and ran straight over to say thank you. It was a lovely moment, almost overwhelmingly emotional.

“I have never had to do anything like this before.

"You hope to never use your CPR skills but it is so important we are all trained in case this happens. I am just glad I was there at the right time.”

Mr Dziadosz’s son, Mateusz, his daughter-in-law Monika and their daughter, Emilia, who live in Chatteris, presented Claire with gifts including a bunch of flowers to say thank you.

Mateusz said: “We are so grateful.

"If it wasn’t for Claire and everyone else who helped that night, my dad would not be here and Emilia would not have a grandad to watch her grow up.”

Monika added: “The doctor said that without Claire’s actions my father-in-law would not have survived.

"People don’t normally survive cardiac arrests when they happen away from a hospital.

“If it had to happen, we are so glad it happened when it did, when people were about to help. He is now back home and feeling much better.”

In the UK there are over 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) a year where emergency medical services attempt to resuscitate the victim.

However, the survival rate is low – just 1 in 10 people in the UK survive an OHCA. Early CPR and defibrillation can double the chances of survival.