By Isobel Williams
A hero husband saved his wife’s life by performing CPR techniques he remembered from watching TV – after she “died” in the passenger seat of their car.
Paul Cutler, 64, was driving to his home in Kent from the Wirral when he looked over and saw partner, Suzanne, 57, was “lifeless.”
In a panic, the retired salesman made an emergency stop on the hard shoulder of the M56 near Manchester and pulled her out of the car to perform CPR.
Cutler, a councillor at Dartford Borough Council, says he has had no resuscitation training – so he did what he had seen on television.
He did this for around five minutes before an ambulance helicopter found them – partly due to Suzanne’s bright orange dress, which passers-by used to pinpoint their location.
Paramedics managed to use a defibrillator to resuscitate the mom after three attempts, before rushing her to nearby Wythenshawe Hospital on November 24.
Paul, a former mayor of Dartford, says he was later told that his CPR efforts kept the oxygen pumping to Suzanne’s brain and organs – saving her life.
He said: “We were driving along merrily and I suddenly looked and I just saw Suzanne basically lifeless. I could see she was dead. My whole world just caved in.
“I shouted to my daughter that something was wrong and she started shaking her, her head flopped down and her lips turned blue.
“I made a very quick decision to pull over on the hard shoulder. I literally manhandled her and launched her out of the chair and dragged her onto the grass verge.
“One of the things I really remember is the desperation of being on our own on the side of the motorway with the cars and trunks thundering by and nobody coming.
“We thought we had lost her. She was clinically dead for five minutes. When I heard them say they had a pulse I was over the moon.”
Suzanne was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020 and had a mastectomy, with some of the treatment sadly damaging her heart.
However, Paul says that his wife had been healthy and life was ‘normal’ before she had the devastating cardiac arrest.
Suzanne, who works at a chartered accountants, was placed in an induced coma where doctors feared she may suffer brain damage, but luckily she recovered well.
The mom-of-four remained in hospital for 25 days while Paul, who has been with her for 33 years, stayed with family nearby to be at her bedside.
She was discharged a week before Christmas and was fitted with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator to monitor her heart and give her a jolt if needed.
Paul, a dad-of-four and grandad-of-two, is now urging others to watch tutorials on CPR, so that they can save their loved ones too.
He said: “The CPR was what kept the oxygen pumping to her brain and organs. I am not saying that I am super clever, but we would just like other people to find out about this.
“We were very lucky. We would have been devastated if we had lost my wife, we are a very close family.
“I was absolutely exhausted at the end I couldn’t even get off my knees. I was almost ready to pass out myself. My daughter was amazing she encouraged me to keep going.
“It was the most distressing, terrifying thing I have ever experienced. I was trying to keep my daughter sane too she was in an absolute state her mum was dead, and nobody was coming to help.
“We want to try and put the awareness out there because everyone I talk to doesn’t seem to know what to do and how quickly you have to do it before somebody is dead.
“Just a few people looking at a video could save a few lives going forward.”
