Drowned, but brought back to life after an hour

London: A man has survived after his heart stopped beating for up to an hour when he drowned while swimming in the sea near Cape Town. John Deeks, 35, who was born in South Africa but has British citizenship, got into difficulties while swimming in unusually heavy seas off Glencairn.

A shark spotter on shore raised the alarm when he saw Deeks's lifeless body floating face-down. Two men, who have not been identified, brought Deeks back to the beach. He was not breathing and had no heartbeat, but a volunteer doctor with the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI), South Africa's lifeboat service, began cardio-pulmonary resuscitation and advanced life support paramedics took him to hospital.

His heartbeat was only restored almost an hour later, and he spent several days on a ventilator before making an apparently full recovery. Deeks, an architectural technician, from Colliers Wood, south London, returned to his mother's house in Glencairn, on Thursday.

He said that being brought back from the dead "feels great". "Actually I don't remember anything of the event. Basically I went out for a swim and the sea was very rough and the tide was very high and I got into difficulties. I must have got pulled over by a wave and caught in a current."