The day my heart stopped

PAUL Gascoigne has told how he came "back from the dead" when doctors restarted his heart.

- JEREMY ARMSTRONG

The nailbiting moment came after the former England ace was admitted to a rehab clinic in Arizona.

Pals Alan Shearer, Chris Evans and Danny Baker rallied round to help him at the lowest point in his life due to his addiction to alcohol.

He was in an induced coma for 18 days and had an injection into his heart which doctors said had kept him alive during the 2013 scare.

Yet rumours of his demise were so widespread that a complete stranger told him, "I thought you were dead" when he arrived back in the UK.

In an interview to promote his memoir Eight with Mirror Books, he said: "Looking back at what happened in Arizona, when I died on the operating table, that was really scary.

"The doctors said they were able to get me back. I came around and I was doped up to f***.

"I eventually got on the phone to my family and said, 'It is OK, I am through it, I have recovered.

"But I always remember coming back to Newcastle and seeing a woman in the street.

"She stopped and stared at me, she almost fainted. She said, 'I thought you were dead'. I said, 'Of course I am not f****** dead." The 58-year-old said the encounter was the result of a fake report of his death that spread online.

"It had been going all round that 'Gazza had died," he explained.