00:00This is the pitch where amateur footballer Kevin Smith suffered a cardiac arrest in March,
00:07something he says he wouldn't have survived without a defibrillator.
00:11I did say to one of the paramedics who was working on me, am I going to die?
00:18And the paramedic was really very professional and he just looked at me and he said,
00:22I'm doing everything I can mate to save you.
00:24I just thought, I hope my wife gets here before I pass.
00:27And I was just glad that my daughter wasn't here watching.
00:32Kevin was playing in a local derby match when his heart stopped and he collapsed,
00:37effectively dying for 15 minutes.
00:40But his friends and teammates saved his life,
00:44performing CPR and shocking him with a defibrillator until help arrived.
00:48The first thing the lady asked me, she said, how many shots has Kevin had?
00:52I said, I've just done the third.
00:57She put her finger there, felt a pulse, realised that he'd recovered.
01:05Well, we brought him back, a shot of adrenaline and they performed their miracle.
01:11It took three shots from a defibrillator to bring Kevin back round.
01:15But new research from Every Minute Matters shows that 64% of people here in the southeast would be too
01:23afraid to use one.
01:25Now, Kevin's hoping that sharing his story will encourage others to become more confident.
01:30Please don't be frightened.
01:32Defib is so beautifully structured as a tool that it shows you everything you need to do.
01:40And you can't do anything wrong by doing anything you can do something massively right if you give someone that
01:47extra time that can save their lives.
01:50In an emergency, the 999 call handler will inform you where the nearest defibrillator is.
01:55And the British Heart Foundation also has an online tool which shows you where to find one.
02:01For Kevin, the football grounds defibrillator gave him a second chance at life.
02:07And he says the game will always play a vital role for him.
02:11My wife had always said to me, football will be the death of you.
02:14In the early hours of the 7th of March, I was able to say, football saved my life.
02:19So football saved my life because of a defect.
02:21Kevin is living proof that the sports we give our hearts to might just be the very thing that saves
02:28them.
02:28Sophie Denny for KMTV in Chatham.
