‘It was obvious I was gone,’ Mark says, ‘I was lying there, not moving, with my eyes wide open, not breathing.’
Mark Moran, a 63-year-old from Bristol, was an avid sportsman – regularly participating in triathlons and marathons. But just over a year ago, on a ‘seemingly gentle bike ride’, he almost lost his life.
In November 2024, Mark, a business owner, set off with friends Steve Makin and Dave Lane on a bike ride from Cirencester to a pub in Frampton Cotterell, South Gloucestershire.
The trio were just minutes away from arriving at their destination, in search of a hefty plate of chips, when Mark suddenly collapsed.
‘It happened over a period of a few seconds,’ he shared. ‘I’m on the bike and I start to feel dizzy like I’m passing out. I go to slow down because I’m clipped onto my pedals. And then there was just nothing.
‘No energy, no muscle, no nothing. The last thing I remember is facing at an angle. And the last thing to go through my head was: “This is it.”
Mark recalls hearing ‘almost a sound of thunder’ in the background and coming to the horrifying realisation that his life might be about to end.
However, miraculously, Mark survived a traumatic cardiac arrest.
As soon as he hit the ground, pal Steve was by his side, a sight Mark admits must have been ‘absolutely terrifying’ for his friend.
Steve immediately started CPR, having remembered the 2012 ‘Stayin’ Alive’ campaign which saw footballer Vinnie Jones team up with the British Heart Foundation to try and help educate people on how to perform CPR in an emergency.
Jones has revived his role in this campaign numerous times, most recently promoting the Every Minute Matters initiative – a 2025 campaign where Sky Bet and the English Football League (EFL) teamed up to support the BHF with a nationwide event to inspire football fans to learn potentially lifesaving CPR and be prepared for emergencies.
Pumping rhythmically to the Bee Gees tune, Steve persevered for almost 10 minutes – so determined to keep Mark alive that he actually broke three of his ribs.
While Dave cycled to the nearest spot where he could reach help, Steve also managed to dial 999. He also put Mark in the recovery position and made sure his airways were clear.
This is where first responder Pete Bishop comes into the picture. A volunteer for the South Western Ambulance Service Foundation Trust, Pete was ‘at home in his trackie bottoms, doing his day job’ when he received the call about Mark.
Immediately into the car, Pete reached the scene in just nine minutes – a crucial aspect of the story aided by the fact that Steve had the app what3words downloaded onto his phone.
Designed to simplify location-finding, the app has divided the world into 3m x 3m squares, each with a unique three-word address.
Once Pete arrived, he gave Mark, whose lips had turned blue, two lifesaving defibrillator shocks.
Soon after Pete’s arrival, both an ambulance and the air ambulance were on the scene. As Mark came around in the ambulance, he called out to his shocked and worried friends: ‘All right, boys.’
Then he started calling out instructions about where to find his keys, repeatedly, before losing consciousness again.
Mark was then flown by helicopter to the Bristol Heart Institute, which, ‘in the chain of survival,’ Mark shared, ‘is probably one of the best places you could be with a heart issue.’
Mark later awoke in hospital, fitted with his very own internal defibrillator, despite having no underlying heart condition. The 63-year-old spent a further three weeks in hospital before he was discharged and given a clean bill of health.
Mark has never taken his health for granted. In 2005, following a spinal surgery, he lived with limited movement for months – a situation so debilitating it actually inspired him to start his business, creating a unique hands-free water bottle that solves the problem of hydration (and dehydration) in a wide range of healthcare applications.
So, it’s safe to say, Mark knows how lucky he is. And he credits a number of miracles for saving his life. One of course being Pete: ‘I had no idea just how important first responders are. These are not ambulances or paramedics. These are trained volunteers whose job is to get there quickly and help. They’re unpaid, and they’re phenomenal people.’
Mark is also incredibly grateful that his friend has the what3words app downloaded onto his phone: ‘That’s what brought Pete Bishop to me within nine minutes. If he’d been ten minutes, I might not be here. So that is a pretty phenomenally powerful tool that I knew nothing about.’
Pete later revealed that he’d been to twenty cases like Mark’s, and that Mark was the first to survive, making the entire ordeal a miracle indeed.
Six months after his discharge from hospital, Mark went on to run the Bristol Half Marathon to raise money for the air ambulance team who saved his life.
And in July, the trio took the trip again so they could at last visit the pub in Frampton Cotterell for that plate of chips, pausing on the grassy bank where Mark had lain with his head in a bush, close to death.
Fewer than ten per cent of people survive cardiac arrest outside of hospital and Mark believes he is exceptionally lucky.
The 63-year-old is now keen for others to learn CPR in case they can save a life. With three-quarters of cardiac arrests happening at home, the first person on the scene is often a family member or bystander.
Early CPR and defibrillation can more than double survival chances, yet NHS Charities Together data shows fewer than three in ten people currently feel confident to step in during an emergency.
NHS Charities Together is aiming to tackle these issues through the allocation of £1.85 million in grants received through a partnership with Omaze.
The funding will support all 14 UK NHS ambulance charities to build capacity in communities, reduce health inequalities, and ease pressure on frontline services by providing the training, resources, and equipment needed to save lives.
Reflecting on his story, Mark noted: ‘My heart was basically stopped for 15 minutes. It’s pretty terminal. So I feel like the luckiest guy on the planet. Had it not been for my mates and Pete Bishop, I wouldn’t be here today.’
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