My life-saving pals and Vinnie Jones

Alan Linton collapsed in cardiac arrest on a golf course earlier this year. Here he tells his incredible story of life after death.

Monday 19 November, 2012

On February 5, 2012, while out playing golf with my three mates, I had a sudden cardiac arrest.

I will always remember that day. Mikey, Brian and I drove over the hill to pick up Paul on route to the golf course. We stopped for a cuppa at Paul's and I remember thinking it was far too frosty to play golf.

Thank god we all decided to play together because I firmly believe if I wasn't with those guys I wouldn’t be alive today - they were unbelievable.

As I was walking off the fifth green, after missing a silly putt, I suddenly felt very dizzy. As I rolled onto my back Brian gave me a playful kick telling me to get up. But when he realised I wasn't messing about the boys jumped into action; Paul started CPR straight away, Mikey cleared my airways and Brian called 999. Paul’s only experience in CPR was watching the Hands-only CPR advert the week before, starring Vinnie Jones.

It took Gordon, a paramedic, about 10 minutes to arrive followed shortly afterwards by another paramedic, Alan McIntyre. They worked on me for another 20 minutes or so until the helicopter arrived. I was then airlifted to Ninewells Hospital in Dundee.

I spent three weeks in hospital where I had an internal defibrillator fitted before being allowed home. To this day the doctors have been unable to find out why I collapsed on the golf course but having the defib is a great source of comfort in case something ever happened again. I feel great now, probably better than before, thanks to all the people who have helped me on my road to recovery.

Since leaving hospital I've been lucky enough to have been asked to do promotional work for the British Heart Foundation. On one of these occasions I was given a message from Vinnie Jones, asking me and the boys for a round of golf in LA, which brought a tear or two to the eye. I have since met Vinnie and what a fantastic feeling it was to meet the man that probably started the process of saving my life.

 Now I can't wait for that game of golf.