TWO factory workers have been honoured for saving the life of a fellow worker who'd stopped breathing after suffering a massive cardiac arrest.

Without the swift action of Graham Bennetto and fellow first-aider Andrew Clark, 62-year-old John Symes would have died – his heart had stopped, he wasn't breathing and had no pulse.

Graham, a retained firefighter at Coleford, takes up the dramatic story.

"It was in the afternoon, about 3.30pm. John had collapsed on the floor in our stores.

"A colleague rang me on my office phone and said he thought John had had a heart attack. The first thing I did was to grab our on site defibrillator.

"When I got there Andy was already with him. By looking at John I could see he was going purple and told Andy we had to get the defibrillator on him straight away. He wasn't breathing and his heart had gone into VF (ventricular fibrillation). His body had started shutting down simply because there was no blood supply to the brain.

"I shocked him while Andy was doing compressions. I shocked him a second time while Andy did more compressions. I did him two breaths and then he retched.

"I said 'I think we've got him back' and just then the paramedic walked in. It was a close call, it just so happened that everything fell into place on the day. I was at my desk – I could have been on the shop floor – and we had a defibrillator. The whole thing happened in three to four minutes, any longer and we would have lost him. He's a very lucky guy."

John, who cycles everywhere and had shown no signs of ill health before the arrest, was airlifted to Frenchay Hospital and then to the Bristol Royal Infirmary where he was put into an induced coma for several days.

Doctors discovered that the cardiac arrest happened because his brain was sending rogue signals to his heart.

John is now back working at SPP Pumps in Coleford, alongside Graham and Andy, the men who saved his life.

Graham and Andrew have now been honoured by Great Western Ambulance Service, receiving a Chief Officer's Commendation "for their exemplary actions for the benefit of others."