Footballer urges more people to learn CPR after it saved his life
Kick-off times for all EFL fixtures are being delayed by one minute this week to highlight that every minute matters
Last updated 8 hours ago
A football player who suffered a cardiac arrest whilst playing in the Premier League is urging more people to learn CPR, saying less than 1 in 10 people survive an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
Thirty-six EFL fixtures, from the 5-9 February, across all three divisions, are set to kick-off one minute later than scheduled, to highlight that every minute matters when it comes to performing life-saving CPR.
It is part of Sky Bet and the British Heart Foundation’s Every Minute Matters campaign which, with the support of the EFL, which has already encouraged over 400,000 people to start learning CPR since the launch in May 2024.
Now, the campaign aims to get half a million people in UK to start learning CPR by the end of the month, as February marks Heart Month.
Tom Lockyer suffered a cardiac arrest while playing for Luton Town on 16 December 2023, when he collapsed in the 59th minute and his heart stopped for 2 minutes and 41 seconds.
The Welshman recently returned to Bristol Rovers in October 2025 where he has since made seven appearances.
Lockyer said: “I remember lying on the floor looking at the paramedics - I wasn't able to speak, I wasn't able to move and I remember thinking, I could be dying here.”
“I’m one of the lucky ones"
Around 40,000 people each year suffer a cardiac arrest out of hospital and less than one in ten survive, according to figures from the British Heart Foundation.
The Bristol Rovers defender said: “I’m one of the lucky ones to have survived an out of hospital cardiac arrest because mine happened on a football pitch away at Bournemouth in the Premier League and I had trained paramedics there straight away. Sadly, that's not the case for so many”.
“Since I've been on this campaign, there's been a lot of people reach out with their own different stories and quite naively at the start, I thought it’d be a lot of people who are older but that's just simply not the case.
“I've had people reach out about their 18-month-old daughter who had a cardiac arrest. Being a father now myself, that's just absolutely heartbreaking. Imagine being in that situation and not knowing what to do”, said Lockyer.
He added: “80% of cardiac arrests will happen at home.
“God forbid, you're at home and your mum, dad, your daughter or your loved one goes over and you didn't know what to do.
“You can learn it for free in just 15 minutes on the British Heart Foundation website.”