WHEN Stephen Nardone turned up to watch a local nativity play he had no idea he would experience a Christmas miracle of his own after a near-fatal cardiac arrest caused his heart to stop for 27 minutes.

Mr Nardone says he would be dead today if not for the heroic intervention of four off-duty nurses and a schoolteacher to rushed to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) after he collapsed and kept the blood and crucial oxygen supplies flowing to his brain until paramedics arrived.

The drama unfolded shortly after the 71-year-old, from Crosshill in Fife, arrived at St. Kenneth's Primary School in Ballingry on the morning of December 15 last year to watch the pupils' nativity play.

Mr Nardone, a retired financial worker, was invited to attend due to his previous work with the school as a member of the area’s community council.

After entering the assembly hall, speaking to parents and teachers, and buying some raffle tickets, Mr Nardone took his seat. Seconds later he was on the floor after a cardiac arrest struck out of the blue, stopping his heart.

"I remember nothing," said Mr Nardone. "The last thing I remember is being dressed up as Santa Claus for the little kids at the library the day before, on the Thursday. There's nothing after that.

"Apparently I left the house morning and walked to the school, which is maybe about a mile and a half.

"It was a bitterly cold morning and I was speaking to people on the route, but I don't remember speaking to them, and when I got into the school I spoke to the headteacher and the assistant head and one or two parents.

"Apparently I bought raffle tickets beforehand - I never win raffles anyway. I don't remember collapsing.

"They had to cancel the nativity play because I was lying flat out in the assembly room. People knew it was something serious".

School pupils had not yet gathered in the hall and the rest of the audience members were cleared out while a handful of bystanders fought to save Mr Nardone's life.

"It was four off-duty nurses and a schoolteacher who administered CPR," said Mr Nardone. "They were getting instructions on the phone from the girl in the ambulance call centre, telling them what to do.

"They did that until the paramedics arrived and when they arrived they got the defibrillator on and gave me a couple of shocks to revive my heart."

"My wife was told that had those nurses or the teacher not been there, I wouldn't have made it.

"I've been told my heart had stopped beating for 27 minutes so technically I was dead all that time, but the nurses were doing CPR to keep the blood flowing to my brain."

Mr Nardone was rushed by ambulance to the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy where he was placed in an induced coma and kept in intensive care. He regained consciousness four days later, on December 19.

He said: “My wife told me what happened when I woke up. It took a wee while to sink. I was a wee bit groggy.

"I knew something had happened. I was confused more than anything else. I had never had one before.

“I was scary, but I imagine it would have been a 100 times worse for my wife. The treatment by everyone has been first class.”

Mr Nardone said the cardiac arrest came completely out of the blue. His only other health scare last year was a planned operation to treat a brain aneurysm - a bulge in a blood vessel.

A cardiac arrest means that a person's heart suddenly stops beating due to an electrical malfunction.

It is completely different from a heart attack, which occurs when the blood flow to the heart is blocked, typically by a blood clot, and is most common when the arteries have become clogged with cholesterol deposits.

Even now, doctors cannot tell Mr Nardone why he suffered a cardiac arrest that day - but he has made a full recovery.

Following his brush with death, the pensioner set about raising over £3000 to buy a defibrillator for the primary school, which does not currently have one.

He has also been reunited for the first time with the ambulance staff who helped to keep him alive, including call taker, Claire Stewart, paramedics Kevin Fitzgerald and Jim Hutchison, who were dispatched from Cowdenbeath, and Derek Mitchell and Nathan Thomson, the second crew sent from Perth.

Mr Nardone said: “What can you say to someone who has saved your life? You can take them flowers, a box of chocolates - but what can you really do to thank them. There's nothing."

It comes as it was announced that a £54,000 investment will fund the roll-out of life-saving defibrillators to 34 railway stations across Scotland.

The ScotRail Alliance - a partnership between train operator ScotRail and Network Rail - said the devices will be placed in public areas of the station.

So far, 19 devices have been delivered to stations and work is underway to install the storage cabinets.

David Lister, ScotRail Alliance Sustainability & Safety Assurance Director, said: “In an emergency, a defibrillator can make the difference between life and death, which is why we’ve made sure that they will all be located where anyone can reach them at any time.”