Marbella police officer saves life of man in shopping centre cardiac arrest scare

Juan Ignacio Arbulo spent his 68th birthday in a coma at the Costa del Sol Hospital in Marbella. The Madrid resident spent 14 days in this state after suffering a cardiac arrest in a shop in La Cañada shopping centre. As he says, he was extremely lucky that José Manuel Lora, a National Police officer, was nearby at the time. Although Lora was off duty, he did not hesitate for a moment: "If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be here to tell the story."

Although the patient has no memory of what happened on the morning of 29 September last year, the officer remembers it as if it was yesterday. "I was about to pay for my shopping when I heard a commotion in the background, I approached and heard people calling for help... that's how it all started," Lora said. Seeing the man on the floor, he immediately identified himself as a policeman and, after unbuttoning Arbulo's shirt, checked his vitals.

He realised that "he had no pulse and wasn't breathing" and immediately began resuscitation manoeuvres. In this tense situation, seconds seemed like hours for the policeman, who could see that the man was not recovering. After a while, a woman who identified herself as a nurse approached with a defibrillator and Lora administered two shocks to the victim, whose skin was already turning a bluish colour.

"They were very complicated moments in which, despite the fact that he was exhausted, all I could think about was doing what I could to get him back on his feet," explained Lora. As the officer points out, after a few minutes he had the help of three security guards, with whom he took turns to continue with the CPR on Arbulo until the arrival of the medical staff, while the 112 operators gave them instructions over the telephone on how save the patient's life, which was hanging by a thread.

This is what the doctors told the Madrid man when he came out of the coma, 14 days later. "The doctors told me that I was in cardiorespiratory arrest for 13 minutes," he said. Words of thanks fall short for Arbulo when he thinks of what Lora did for him, especially because it was his quick reaction that has allowed him to live a normal life today without after-effects: "He went out of his way to save a perfect stranger."

For the policeman, who has been stationed at the Marbella police station for ten years, it was unthinkable not to react when he saw a person in distress. The vocation of public service is in his DNA, even if he was not wearing the blue uniform at the time. "When you see someone in that situation, more than training, what moves you is your instinct and your common sense to try to save them," Lora said.

Once Arbulo came out of the coma and found out what had happened, he asked his brother to go to the police headquarters to thank his guardian angel for his intervention, and Lora, as soon as he knew he was out of danger, went to the hospital to visit him and celebrate the news. "He came to see me with a colleague and it was wonderful, I couldn't get out of bed but I sat up to give him a kiss and a hug for what he had done for me," Arbulo said.

The scare has united Lora and Arbulo for life, and they are still in contact today. In fact, the Madrid man said that in May he is coming to Marbella and that his first stop will be at the police station, where he will leave a letter stating how enormously grateful he will be "for life" to the officer.