A man brought his wife back to life on the hard shoulder of the motorway after she 'died' in the passenger seat of their car, and knew she was getting better when she complained he'd cracked her ribs. Paul Cutler and his wife, Suzanne, were driving home to Dartford after a family celebration when he glanced over and saw she was “lifeless”.

The retired salesman made an emergency stop on the M56 just outside Manchester, pulled her out onto a grass verge and started to give her CPR. Their daughter Annie, who was with them, dialled 999 and asked for an ambulance.

Paul, a councillor and former mayor in Dartford, said: “It all happened so fast. I’d seen how it was done on television and just kept going. Traffic was hammering past, and the air ambulance landed in a field nearby. Annie and I both thought we had lost her. Looking back, it was horrific.”

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Paramedics took over using a defibrillator on the roadside to resuscitate the 57-year-old former mayoress who had suffered a cardiac arrest. Paul, 64, said: “On the third attempt, I heard somebody say ‘we have a pulse’”. Annie, 20, accompanied her mother in the ambulance, which was blue-lighted to Wythenshawe Hospital in Greater Manchester, where there is a specialist heart unit.

Paul followed in an ambulance support vehicle to be with his wife, who was rushed to the resuscitation room before being transferred to the ICU and put into an induced coma. Suzanne, a mother of four and a grandmother, stabilised overnight.

After remaining in the hospital for 25 days, Suzanne was discharged a week before Christmas. Paul stayed with their daughter in the Wirral, where the couple had travelled to attend their grandson’s third birthday party.

Paul said: “I had time on my side and started to go on the internet and do some research. I was amazed at the statistics. Every minute makes a massive difference as every minute the chances of survival fall to the floor. We were so close to losing her. It would have torn our family apart.”

Paul said doctors were amazed how Suzanne had pulled through the near-death situation. He said: “They described me as ‘the man who saved his wife’, and said she would not have lived if I had not carried out the CPR immediately. But I’m not after praise. It’s about education.”

Paul said, five years ago, Suzanne underwent successful breast cancer surgery and was given targeted therapy medication to fight off the formation of further cancerous cells.

The treatment had a rare, diverse side effect on her heart, and she was rushed to the hospital with pneumonia in 2021. Suzanne had to take five months off from her job at an accountancy firm while she recovered.

She’s had no other health issues since, until the cardiac arrest in December. Paul is now committed to making more people aware of the importance of CPR and of having life-saving equipment like defibrillators in schools and colleges.

He worked most of his career in corporate sales and took on a part-time teaching job before retirement. He has contacted former colleagues to start an awareness campaign, and stressed the need for every school to have a defibrillator.

Paul said that an estimated 270 children die every year in the UK from sudden cardiac arrest, emphasising the need for awareness and equipment to be present in all schools.

“I want to get the ball rolling and reach out to as many people as possible.”

Suzanne has had an ICD fitted which is a device which monitors heart rhythm and prevents sudden cardiac arrest. Paul said: “When she moaned to the nurse that her ribs were aching because of the cracked ribs I had given her while doing CPR, I knew she was on the mend.”