Luton Town's Tom Lockyer leads campaign urging fans to learn CPR
Lockyer suffered a cardiac arrest on pitch last year and has been raising awareness of CPR ever since
Luton Town captain Tom Lockyer is leading a campaign to encourage football fans to learn CPR, following his own cardiac arrest on pitch.
The 29-year-old, whose heart stopped for two minutes on the pitch at Bournemouth in December, returned to training last month.
Ever since his accident, he has advocated for people to learn CPR and stressed the importance of knowing vital skills, which he said have 'saved his life'.
Speaking to Greatest Hits Radio, he said: "No one knows how you're going to react in a situation like that.
"When you see someone drop dead in front of you, because that's basically what happens, each minute you don’t act, the chance of surviving goes down by 10%."
Recent research by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and Sky Bet reveals that while 44% of football fans have faced a CPR emergency, 45% lack the confidence to act in such situations.
Despite advances in making defibrillators more widely available, there remains a significant knowledge gap when it comes to CPR.
Almost a third of fans (31%) reported being inspired to learn CPR after witnessing high-profile players like Lockyer and Christian Eriksen collapse on the pitch.
However, many fans still face barriers, with 23% believing CPR is too complicated to learn and 25% fearing they could cause harm if they attempt it.
Lockyer said: "For free, you can learn CPR online at the British Heart Foundation website.
"You can use the tool on there called RevivR and you can learn CPR in just 15 minutes and be in a position to save someone's life."
Since the Every Minute Matters campaign was launched in May, it has motivated 90,000 people to start learning CPR—enough to fill Wembley Stadium.
The goal is to train 270,000 people, with the BHF raising £400,000 so far to fund community resuscitation activities and install 80 more defibrillators across the UK.
Lockyer praised the initiative, and said: "These defibrillators will save someone's life in the future. We just hope they can get there in time, and whoever is close to the person can perform CPR until the defib arrives."
The Welsh Warrior revealed having been fitted with an implantable defibrillator, a device that can detect a life-threatening, rapid heartbeat.
"I feel incredibly safe. I call it my superpower," he added.
"I'm going to live forever now because, when I'm 85 and about to die of old age, it'll just shoot me back and say, 'No, not today.'"
While his device could now save his life, Lockyer continues to praise the efforts of paramedics to bring him back to life following his collapse.
However he insisted incidents not only affect athletes training at the highest level, whose bodies are put under tremendous pressure - it can happen to anyone.
He said: "It doesn't discriminate. It it doesn't just choose professional athletes.
"I had a message a few months back saying that a cardiac arrest had happened to someone's 18-month-old daughter. I just couldn’t believe it.
"Being a new father myself, I couldn’t understand how people could not learn CPR when they hear stories like this."
Lockyer is also advocating for CPR to be taught as a life skill from a young age, with regular refresher courses, and encourages all to locate defibrillators in case of an emergency.