Double HERO

'Shy' man saves the lives of TWO joggers who collapsed in park on two separate occasions

- By JAMIE GREER

A 'SHY' hero saved the lives of two different people in Sefton Park.

Richard Houston, 41, from Woolton, was out running in the park on May 7 last year with his friend Eamon Brady from the Penny Lane Striders group.

Richard was a keen runner and had taken part in a Thai boxing session only that morning.

Sefton Park was a convenient location for him to exercise, as he helped to run the Aigburth People's Hall nearby - but the next thing he remembers is waking up in hospital with no idea how he got there.

Richard told the ECHO: "I used to go to the Penny Lane Striders years ago but I still jogged occasionally.

"I'm running around the park with [Eamon] and woke up 10 days later in the hospital.

"I dropped dead and had a cardiac arrest. Luckily he was with me, so he recognised it straight away.

"He caught me, apparently, on the way down. I can't remember any of this; this is just what people have told me. Eamon told passersby to phone an ambulance. He started doing CPR on me.

"Other passersby came up; I think he said a lady helped him. They kept going until the ambulance turned up and used a defibrillator.

"I think I was dead for 11 minutes. Then I was in the hospital in a coma for a bit.

"I came round and had to have a triple bypass operation."

Richard said he was shocked when he found out what had happened to him.