'I would love to play one more game': Tom Lockyer calls on Brits to learn CPR as he looks back on cardiac arrest

30 September 2024, 21:22 | Updated: 30 September 2024, 22:21

Luton Town captain Tom Lockyer has told LBC he “would love to play just one more game” after he suffered a cardiac arrest during a Premier League match last year.

The Luton captain collapsed mid-way through the second half of their Premier League tie with Bournemouth after suffering a cardiac arrest.

Speaking to LBC’s Iain Dale, Lockyer urged football fans and the wider public to learn CPR, warning he “was one of the lucky ones.”

Looking back on the life-changing moment, Lockyer said: “I remember starting the game well…just jogging up to the halfway line after the VAR check and feeling incredibly lightheaded and then waking up on the floor.

“I woke up two minutes 42 seconds later, and saw paramedics and the club doctor and physios bent over me and really in sort of panic mode or go mode, I call it.

Tom Lockyer is campaigning to get more Brits to learn CPR

“I couldn't move, couldn't speak, and I was just looking up at them, like, trying to make sense of what was going on. They kept saying, can you hear me? Can you hear me? And I'm in my head, I'm trying to respond, and nothing's coming out.

"I can still feel everything that's going on. So I can feel like a a drip going into my arm and just wanted to, like, move and say something, and then felt like an eternity.

“Eventually I could move, and then as soon as I could, I was like, what's happened, what's going on? And that's when reality set in.”

Lockyer recently launched the Every Minute Matters campaign, which aims to raise £3 million and recruit 270,000 football fans to learn CPR.

Sky Bet recently announced a £500,000 donation, with 90,000 footy fans already learning the crucial skill.

Lockyer continued: “ I'm one of the fortunate ones, and that's why you know this, campaign with the British Heart Foundation and Sky Bet means so much to me.

“The sad reality is, 30,000 people each year in the UK will have a cardiac arrest, and if that's out of hospital, less than one in 10 will survive.

“This is purely because of a lack of of defibrillators in the local community and not enough people knowing CPR to keep that person alive until a defib gets there to save their life.”

Lockyer hopes to train enough people in CPR to fill two Wembley stadiums, he told LBC.

The Premier League star said his recovery is “going well” but the incident will “define him as a person” for the rest of his life.

Lockyer has struggled with watching his teammates at Luton, who were relegated from the Premier League last season, take to the pitch without him.

He told Iain that he hopes that, one day, he can play for the Hatters again.

“Obviously, I'd love to get back on a football pitch, but I mean, for a minute, I'm enjoying promoting this campaign,” he said.

“I've not even thought about it the minute, because it just seems so far away. But, oh, I'd love to, love to play at least one more game with with my daughter watching would be, would be incredible.”