Heart attack victim saved by postman fights for life in hospital

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A Preston resident who was brought back from the brink of death by a hero Royal Mail delivery worker remains in Blackpool’s Victoria Hospital today “fighting for life.”

The patient, who lives in the Lancashire town’s Brookfield Estate, was “flat out on the settee and completely still,” when Preston CDO delivery worker Les Furesz entered the house at the urgent request of the man’s wife.

Les had been on his Saturday morning round, when at about 11am, he was alerted by a neighbour to a distressed woman in the street where he was delivering.

“She said she thought her husband seemed to have had a heart attack and that there was no response from him at all and that he’d stopped breathing,” he explains.

Telling her to call emergency services immediately, he rushed inside as asked, and despite not having administered emergency assistance for many years, Les’s old Territorial Army training, in his words, “came flooding back to me” as soon as he saw the situation.

“It was like I immediately knew what to do,” he recalls, explaining how he knelt down, crossed his hands over the man’s chest and began rhythmically pressing down.

“I just carried on and carried on – and the lady stayed on the phone with the emergency response team relaying everything they said straight to me.”

Slight signs of life returned – periodic opening of his eyes and infrequent breaths – as Les kept working away until the ambulance arrived some 10 to 15 minutes later and took the man straight to Blackpool, where he received immediate acute care at Victoria Hospital’s Lancashire Cardiac Centre.

“I’ve spoken to the lady a couple of times since, and she’s told me he’s still in a coma,” Les reports, adding that a ‘stent’ had been fitted and that a tracheotomy procedure had been due to take place yesterday evening.

“He’s got a fighting chance and he’s fighting hard,” he tells CWU News, adding: “I just hope and pray he recovers.”

Mike Furbur, CWU unit rep at Preston CDO, praises Les’s “tremendous efforts” assisting the man and for “acting so well in such a highly distressing situation.

“Les is a credit to this office, to Royal Mail and to the CWU – and we all send our prayers and very best wishes to this gentleman and his family.”