Paul Duffin had just been for a surf, as he had often done over the previous four decades, when he collapsed in knee-deep water at Blacksmiths beach one Friday morning earlier this month.
The 51-year-old had gone into cardiac arrest.
The Pelican resident says if it was not for the fact that an off-duty Lake Macquarie council lifeguard was one of the few people nearby that morning, it may well have been the end for him.
Fortunately, the lifeguard had a portable defibrillator in the back of his vehicle and was able to keep Mr Duffin alive until paramedics arrived to race him to hospital, where he underwent surgery and spent the next six days recovering.
"I'm the luckiest guy around with everything that fell into place," he said.
"If it happened out the back [in the surf] a few minutes earlier I probably would have drowned."
Mr Duffin met with his rescuers on Friday and donated a portable defibrillator to Pelican RSL Club - his local watering hole.
The machine came from Vital Resus Australia - a Warners Bay company that supplies Lake Macquarie council's defibrillators.
Spokesperson Danny Chard said the company's supplier gives Vital Resus a portable defibrillator each time they hear of someone who has been saved by the device in the area, so that the person can then donate the piece of lifesaving equipment to a business or group that they believe would benefit from the donation.
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