David Ginola was ‘dead for 12 minutes’ after devastating heart attack horror

Without any warning, David Ginola collapsed at a charity football match back in May 2016 and was clinically dead for 12 minutes.

The 54-year-old Frenchman – who the Mirror exclusively revealed is set to star on the upcoming series of I’m A Celebrity – suffered a cardiac arrest while playing on the French Riviera. He stopped breathing completely and even swallowed his own tongue.

“I just collapsed, it was a very frightening situation,” he explained on This Morning in 2018. “There were no warnings, no alarms, I just collapsed.”

Fellow player Frédéric Mendy forced to perform life-saving CPR and Ginola was also given defibrillator shocks to get his heart beating again, before he underwent surgery.

Ginola, who was left in a coma, then underwent a quadruple heart bypass in his native France while also doing some Euro 2016 punditry work.

Just earlier this month, a worrying incident involving a fan in the stands at the Newcastle United vs Tottenham Hotspur match brought unwelcome memories flooding back for Ginola, who was at the ground as a pundit in the Sky Sports studio.

His plight could have been far graver if it wasn’t for the quick actions of medics, whose speedy actions prevented the Frenchman from having permanent brain damage.

David was told that he had a nine out of 10 chance of being left in a permanent vegetative state.

“It has been complicated to handle psychologically,” he told French newspaper L’Equipe in June 2016.

“The fact that I am still here . The clinic told me that nine out of ten people who return after that happens are in the state of a vegetable. I must have a lucky star – that must be my mother up there watching over me.

“Maybe people gave me a kick in the ass and said, ‘This is not your time. I have hundreds of questions, but not necessarily for other people, rather for myself. Compared to life, the little things seem insignificant.

“It was a relatively major procedure. But the only question for the medical team was the state of the brain.

“Generally, when someone goes through something like this, you end up in a rest home.”

Ginola also used his terrifying experience to give advice to fellow former Spurs player Glen Hoddle while he recovered from a heart attack.

Hoddle fell ill after a live TV broadcast back at BT Sports Studios in 2018 was resuscitated by a member of the production crew.

Giving a warning to Glen, who has since made a full recovery, David advised his fellow pundit not to rush back to work too soon.

He admitted he made the mistake of going back to TV work just three weeks after his own attack.

“With hindsight, I think it was a mistake to go back to work presenting Euro 2016 for French TV M6, only three weeks after my heart attack and quadruple bypass, only three weeks after I died,” said Ginola.

“I do hope Glenn or anyone having suffered a heart attack will get time to convalesce and take it easy.

“It is difficult to come to terms, physically and mentally, with having died.”

He added: “Glenn and I were both lucky to have someone close by who knew how to give a heart massage and knew how to use a defibrillator.

“So, if I can allow one piece of advice to everyone – get yourself trained in the first-aid reflexes, and treat yourself to the experience of a lifetime, the ability to save a life.”

Memories of David’s awful heart scare came flooding back earlier this month when 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.

Without any warning, David Ginola collapsed at a charity football match back in May 2016 and was clinically dead for 12 minutes.

The 54-year-old Frenchman – who the Mirror exclusively revealed is set to star on the upcoming series of I’m A Celebrity – suffered a cardiac arrest while playing on the French Riviera. He stopped breathing completely and even swallowed his own tongue.

“I just collapsed, it was a very frightening situation,” he explained on This Morning in 2018. “There were no warnings, no alarms, I just collapsed.”

Fellow player Frédéric Mendy forced to perform life-saving CPR and Ginola was also given defibrillator shocks to get his heart beating again, before he underwent surgery.

Ginola, who was left in a coma, then underwent a quadruple heart bypass in his native France while also doing some Euro 2016 punditry work.

Just earlier this month, a worrying incident involving a fan in the stands at the Newcastle United vs Tottenham Hotspur match brought unwelcome memories flooding back for Ginola, who was at the ground as a pundit in the Sky Sports studio.

His plight could have been far graver if it wasn’t for the quick actions of medics, whose speedy actions prevented the Frenchman from having permanent brain damage.

David was told that he had a nine out of 10 chance of being left in a permanent vegetative state.

“It has been complicated to handle psychologically,” he told French newspaper L’Equipe in June 2016.

“The fact that I am still here . The clinic told me that nine out of ten people who return after that happens are in the state of a vegetable. I must have a lucky star – that must be my mother up there watching over me.

“Maybe people gave me a kick in the ass and said, ‘This is not your time. I have hundreds of questions, but not necessarily for other people, rather for myself. Compared to life, the little things seem insignificant.

“It was a relatively major procedure. But the only question for the medical team was the state of the brain.

“Generally, when someone goes through something like this, you end up in a rest home.”

Ginola also used his terrifying experience to give advice to fellow former Spurs player Glen Hoddle while he recovered from a heart attack.

Hoddle fell ill after a live TV broadcast back at BT Sports Studios in 2018 was resuscitated by a member of the production crew.

Giving a warning to Glen, who has since made a full recovery, David advised his fellow pundit not to rush back to work too soon.

He admitted he made the mistake of going back to TV work just three weeks after his own attack.

“With hindsight, I think it was a mistake to go back to work presenting Euro 2016 for French TV M6, only three weeks after my heart attack and quadruple bypass, only three weeks after I died,” said Ginola.

“I do hope Glenn or anyone having suffered a heart attack will get time to convalesce and take it easy.

“It is difficult to come to terms, physically and mentally, with having died.”

He added: “Glenn and I were both lucky to have someone close by who knew how to give a heart massage and knew how to use a defibrillator.

“So, if I can allow one piece of advice to everyone – get yourself trained in the first-aid reflexes, and treat yourself to the experience of a lifetime, the ability to save a life.”

Memories of David’s awful heart scare came flooding back earlier this month when 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.

The players 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 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.”

“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.”