Hero van driver who helped save Keighley man's life gets in touch after seeing our appeal
Jamie Gill was driving along the M65 when he collapsed at the wheel
Last updated 1st Sep 2021
A hero van driver who helped save a Keighley man's life on the M65 near Blackburn has got in touch with us after hearing our appeal.
Last week we ran a story about 35-year-old Jamie Gill who was driving along the M65 at around 6.30am on Tuesday (24 August 2021) when he began to feel unwell and collapsed behind the wheel after suffering a cardiac arrest.
Jamie has been trying to trace the two men who used their van to force Jamie's car into the central reservation to stop him from swerving uncontrollably.
The impact woke Jamie up so he was able to pull over onto the hard shoulder, where he collapsed again.
The last thing he remembered is being put in the ambulance and seeing an image of a sofa on the side of the delivery van.
He said: "I got onto the motorway and started to feel really weird and like I was getting a headrush.
"They apparently tried to wake me up by beeping the horns to stop me from steering all over the road. They managed to get alongside me and used their van as a kind of bumper car and bumped be into the central reservation.
"This woke me up for a short time and I was able to pull into the hard shoulder. They came over and were tapping on the window but I was completely out of it and I passed out again on the floor.
"They waited with me and called the ambulance. They literally saved my life and saved me from hitting other people as well.
"Hopefully I can reunite with them, shake their hands and buy them a beer."
We've now tracked down those heroes after they heard our appeal last week, they are delivery drivers Stephen Wilkins from Accrington and Charlie Grady from Bolton.
Stephen exclusively told Bauer Media: "It wouldn't be just for him, I'd do it for anybody. If anything like this would happen in the street, I would be there.
"It was lucky it happened while we were there. If the other cars had carried on past and if they'd have thought he'd broken down or something...you don't know what could have happened.
"He could have collided in with that truck if we weren't there trying to stop the traffic and we just saw him holding his chest and saw the colour of him and just decided to phone the paramedics.
"I thought well it's my opportunity now to contact to see if he's okay, and actually speak to him and just let him know I'm more than happy to go and see him if he's alright and actually shake his hand knowing we saved his life. At the end of the day that's more important to me than anything else that he's still alive."