Former Tottenham and Newcastle star David Ginola has revealed that a heart attack left him clinically dead for eight minutes earlier this year.
The 49-year-old had been taking part in a charity match in May when he collapsed.
Having swallowed his tongue and stopped breathing, he had to be revived by paramedics with a defibrillator.
‘The players thought I was joking but then my friend said, ‘Look at him, he’s not okay, he is not fooling around’, Ginola, who also played for Everton and Aston Villa, told The Sun.
“I swallowed my tongue and my friends fought to get it out of my throat, but my teeth kept clamping down on their fingers. Someone called the emergency services and they said, ‘Forget the tongue, he is dead, his heart has stopped, you need to concentrate on pumping his chest.’
‘”My heart stopped for eight minutes at least. There was no pulse, I was dead. Then the air ambulance arrives and they hooked me up to a defibrillator.
‘They sent three electric shocks to my chest and when the third didn’t work they started to lose hope.”
Ginola adds that he remembers very little of the heart attack, but claims that if not for the actions of fellow former footballer, Frederic Mendy, he would have died.
“It’s strange because there were no warnings,” Ginola said. ‘I don’t remember anything but I have been told I was doing flick-overs during the game and scoring goals.
“At one stage, I felt a heavy pain in my groin and my friend said I should stay on the bench but I said, ‘No I want to play”. I scored a goal and on the way back it was just boom.
“My friend, the footballer Frederic Mendy, did the CPR and it is him I have to thank for being alive because he kept the blood going to my brain.”
Dick Clerkin makes his GAA Hour debut to talk about a wonderful career and argue passionately with Colm Parkinson over Sky Sports GAA. Subscribe here on iTunes.
