A BRADFORD man can’t thank his friends enough after they delivered lifesaving first aid when he suffered a cardiac arrest on a football pitch.

Waseem Aslam, of Allerton, collapsed at Marley Sports Centre, Keighley, as a fun match between pals turned into a day his family and all those there will never forget.

Rizwan Malik, Tariq Hussain, Khalid Hussain, Mohammad Sultan and Fazal Rehman were the heroes responsible for what doctors described as a ‘miracle’ keeping their friend alive before the paramedics arrived.

“We were never going to give up, we will see you wake up,” they told Waseem when he awoke.

“The last thing I remember was being stood there on the football pitch and the next thing I was waking up in the ambulance,” Waseem replied.

Although many of those involved in the match had been playing for the last 15 years, Waseem had not for a while due to ongoing ankle injuries.

Nevertheless, the 43-year-old said he’d give it a go by having a stint in net before going outfield.

Sadly that second part never happened as the game suddenly drew to a standstill when Waseem collapsed on the sideline.

Close friend Rizwan Malik recalls the following dramatic moments.

He said: “We all went running across and very quickly it got serious when he didn’t have a pulse. Most of the other lads were distraught and in tears. Then five of us starting giving him CPR.

"It seemed like we were doing it forever. We couldn’t get through to 999. When they did eventually pick up they took over 25 minutes to get there. Luckily, we have all done a first aid course. We just had to keep a clear head. The longer we were doing it, the less likely it seemed that we were going to get him back.

"When the paramedics turned up, they put a heart monitor on him and it was a flatline, that is when I just broke down and thought we lost him. They got the defibrillator out, shocked him a couple of times and thankfully they got a pulse.

"At the time, it didn’t really sink in that we did anything extraordinary, it was just on the way out the paramedics told us you have just saved his life.”

When Waseem finally awoke at 8am the next morning in Leeds General Infirmary’s special heart unit, he was told he had had a cardiac arrest.

He said: “Both the ambulance services and the doctors at the ICU said it was a miracle.

"Massive thanks needs to go to my friends who didn’t give up on me. I got told they rotated in gaining instructions on the phone, giving me mouthto-mouth and pumping my chest. They just went into SOS mode and kept me going.

"The first time the paramedics zapped me I flatlined and they were going to call it but my friends begged them to give it one more try.

"Every day is like a bonus, I am not suppose to be alive. I am here because of my friends.

"(In the hospital) I was at my lowest ebb. I couldn’t take proper breathes. I was having panic attacks and my body was spasming. I felt like I was going to lose my life.”

The pain Waseem’s family, wife Siama and daughters Hafsha, 16, and Hanna, 9,were going through is unimaginable.

For Rizwan telling Siama was the toughest thing he has ever had to do.

He added: “When I told her, I think he has had a cardiac arrest. She was in pieces over the phone.

"There was me, her and Khalid in the waiting room (at Airedale General Hospital). The doctor said he is a really fortunate guy that he has got friends like you. He said not only have you saved his life, you have saved his brain. The fact you carried on persevering with the CPR means he is not in a vegetative state.

"We were just in the right place at the right time. We did not give up. It will stay with me forever.”

Siama thanks the five men dearly and struggles to imagine life without Waseem, the “backbone of the family”.

She said: “Words will never be able to express the gratitude and the appreciation I have for his friends who never gave up on him.

"They brought back to life the children’s daddy and my husband. Those men will be heroes until the day I die.”

The medics can still not narrow down what caused the emergency.

A stumbling block was hit when after hours in the treatment room, surgeons discovered one of Waseem’s two blocked arteries could not have a stent installed.

He added: “Emotionally that hit me. The fact they couldn’t treat it was a big bombshell, it really hit me hard.

"The alternative is open heart surgery, which is a double bypass on the arteries. With me having 12 rib fractures (caused by the CPR), they have said I am not ready for it yet.”