Tom Lockyer feels invincible after surviving cardiac arrest as he backs campaign for fans to learn CPR

TOM LOCKYER feels invincible and is joking among pals that he will ‘live for ever’.

The Wales international TWICE almost died after collapsing with heart problems playing for Luton Town.

But now he is mulling over a return to the game he loves despite initially being ‘at peace’ with retirement should doctors tell him to walk away from the game at 29.

Lockyer, who now has a fitted defibrillator which shocks an irregular heartbeat back to a normal rhythm, said: “I feel safe. It’s like I’ve got a superpower now.

“My biggest joke with my friends is, ‘I’ll live forever’ — because when I’m 85 in bed, possibly dying of old age, the defibrillator will shock me back into life.

“I’m invincible!”

Football held its collective breath while both Hatters and Bournemouth fans at the Vitality watched in horror as midfielder Lockyer collapsed during a Premier League game in December.

It later emerged he had suffered a cardiac arrest just months after paramedics and medical staff saved his life at Wembley during the Championship play-off final against Coventry that May.

Lockyer had fallen to the ground unconscious with atrial fibrillation – or irregular heartbeat – and despite being clinically dead for 2 minutes 40 seconds, medics at the Dorset club rescued him and today he feels fit, healthy and back to his jovial self.

Incredibly, he is also back involved in training sessions.

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So far, it is only warm-up drills with the squad before doing rehab work with his personal coach. It is a first tentative step in a long journey to a possible return to action.

Manchester United’s Christian Eriksen was able to continue playing after suffering a cardiac arrest at the Euros for Denmark in 2021 thanks to a fitted unit.

But to have lived to tell the tale after one serious heart issue is alarming enough — but to survive a second and still want to play is extraordinarily brave.

Yet Lockyer said: “You could say that but I don’t see it that way. I’ve got my box fitted now and feel as safe as any other normal person or player.

“After it happened there was a case that maybe I couldn’t exercise again which for someone who has always been active would’ve been hard.

“I started off doing a bit of rehab to see where I could get to and what I’d be allowed to do safely. When we kept ticking off boxes, I thought, ‘Why stop now?’

“Let’s see where I get to. If I can get on the pitch again, great. If not, I’ll listen to the doctors. Just because I’m back in Luton, it doesn’t mean I’m going to play again.

“It’s not something I can rush — but it’s great to be back among the lads because I missed that changing-room camaraderie.”

But one thing Lockyer does want to see happen quickly is for more people to learn CPR (Cardiopulmonary resuscitation) — and become life-saving heroes like the paramedics that rescued him.

The EFL’s sponsors SkyBet are generously donating £1,000 to the British Heart Foundation for EVERY GOAL scored in the Championship, League One and League Two this weekend — including Friday night’s second-tier clash between Lockyer’s Luton and Wayne Rooney’s Plymouth as well as Tranmere v Salford in the fourth rung.

To mark World Heart Day, SkyBet and the charity want fans of all 72 EFL clubs to kick their fears and apprehensions about performing CPR into Row Z by learning in only 15 minutes how to be a future life-saving hero.

So far — in a campaign called Every Minute Matters — they have managed to get 90,000 members of the public to learn how to do it. Their target is to be able to have enough fans who have learned CPR to fill THREE Wembley stadiums.

Lockyer said: “Your chances of surviving an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is less than one in ten.

“The reality is if you’re unfortunate enough to suffer one, unless there are paramedics or people nearby confident enough to perform CPR, it’s not looking good for you.

“Less than half of EFL fans surveyed by SkyBet said they were confident of doing CPR.

“Imagine if someone you loved, a family member, collapsed in front of you and you didn’t know what to do — despite having all this awareness about CPR brought to your attention and not having spared just 15 minutes to learn it? It would haunt you forever if they passed away.

“I’ve done it online. It’s not rocket science and takes 15 minutes. The more people who know how to do it, the better the survival rates will be.”

Cardiac arrests don’t discriminate. You can be as fit and healthy as a Premier League footballer like myself or a 90-year-old. A man told me about his 18-month-old daughter. That hit home. That was shocking.

Tom Lockyer

An impressive £520,000 has already been raised by the campaign and the first £400,000 of these funds are being spent on 80 more community defibrillators distributed across the UK as well as training more people CPR and defibrillation skills.

Lockyer would like one day for every household to have a defibrillator — which would save many more lives — but accepts a lot of work needs to be done before they can become more affordable.

He said: “Cardiac arrests don’t discriminate. You can be as fit and healthy as a Premier League footballer like myself or a 90-year-old.

“After what happened I had a man reach out to me about what happened to his 18-month-old daughter. That hit home. That was shocking. Thankfully he knew what he was doing and she is still here today.”

Speaking about his own experiences, when Lockyer suffered his first cardiac at Wembley, during the time he lay unconscious, he revealed he dreamed that Luton won the play-off final: “Thankfully that was a reality.”

But the second time, he blacked out completely in a situation that was really touch and go. He said: “When I woke up, I knew what had happened — and as glad I was to have survived the first thought after that was ‘Oh, that my career over then.'”

However, that might not be the case after all and even if it is, Lockyer will continue to campaign passionately in a bid to save others — including this weekend.

And he added: “Let’s hope for lots of goals this weekend — some 10-10 draws would be nice! And please everyone learn how to become a hero like those that saved me.”

Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk