Beating the odds: Sounds like this patient survived an extended cardiac code. “He quickly suffered two cardiac arrests but was stabilised after doctors used a defibrillator, a device that produces an electric shock to start the heart beating again.

He was then given an anti-clotting drug to thin the blood but suffered a series of cardiac arrests over the next 20 minutes as the medical team fought to keep him alive.

He had to be shocked with the defibrillator so many times that he had burns on his chest. He was then transferred to John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, for further treatment. Mr Hackwell, who had led a healthy way of life before his heart attack, said it would take him 18 months to recover fully.”

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