Ginola suffered a cardiac arrest during a charity football match in 2016, which the pundit has opened up on after a fan was taken unwell during Newcastle’s clash with Tottenham
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David Ginola has recalled his own heart scare ordeal after a fan was taken ill during the first-half of Newcastle United’s clash with Tottenham Hotspur.
Play was stopped four minutes before half-time of the Premier League clash after players including Spurs defender Eric Dier were alerted to a medical emergency in the East Stand of St James’ Park.
Medics from both clubs sprinted across the pitch carrying defibrillators, with the players taken to the dugouts away from the incident.
They later entered the dressing rooms before the fan was stretchered across the pitch, and play resumed following a delay of around 20 minutes.
Newcastle later announced that the supporter who was taken ill had been stabilised and was on their way to hospital.
It provoked unwelcome memories for Ginola, who was one of the pundits on duty for the game for Sky Sports.
The former winger suffered a cardiac arrest during a charity football match in 2016, with fellow player Frédéric Mendy forced to perform life-saving CPR.
Ginola was also given defibrillator shocks to get his heart beating again, before he underwent surgery.
And the Frenchman has insisted that the devices are crucial to have in football stadiums in the wake of the emergency at Newcastle.
“It is vital, it is vital because I hope the man or the woman is going to be fine. It brings back some weird memories,” he told Sky Sports.
“I’ve been talking to the lads, I haven’t been in the country for years doing that and you come back to the game and you have a heart-attack/issue in the stadium it’s been weird.
“We were watching a good game and all of a sudden it has been stopped with that. You said the defibrillator helps brilliantly, the fans in the stands to perform CPR helps massively.
“We all should be able to perform CPR to help each other.”
Ginola then described the procedure that should take place if someone near collapses and their heart stops beating, before hailing the efforts of Mendy.
“The first thing to do is not concentrate on the tongue or anything, you need to perform straight away waiting for the people to arrive with the defibrillator,” he said.
“The words of the surgeon who operated me for the full bypass was ‘I’ve done my job but I didn’t save your life. The ones who saved your life was next to you on the football pitch’.
“Mendy and those guys, they had performed CPR and they did it for 12 minutes and I was dead for 12 minutes.
“It is very important otherwise the brain will be damaged, they save your heart but with your brain damaged.”
The former Spurs star also insisted that it is crucial that as many people as possible learn how to perform CPR.
“To spread the message across it’s vital, you don’t know how often it happens,” Ginola added.
“Every day you have people falling and dying from that, they are just near someone who knows how to treat.
“To perform if you have 80 or 90 percent of the population being informed how to perform CPR it will change lives.
“Sometimes the people don’t want to hurt you but the pressure will go very deep, it doesn’t matter if you break ribs, when you learn you do it, it’s impressive you’re going very strong on the body but it’s the key, this is key and this is vital.”