A grateful husband has paid tribute to the first-aider who saved his wife’s life.

Well-known Islander Agnes Stupple suffered a cardiac arrest and collapsed after leaving Sheerness railway station on Friday, May 25.

The 84-year-old was returning with her husband Alf from her sister’s funeral in Scotland when she fell ill at the bus stop in Bridge Road, Sheerness, at about 6pm.

Port of Sheerness health and safety manager, Daren Tidbury, who trains people to do CPR, was cycling home to Minster when he saw what had happened and stopped to help.

He held Agnes’s head until a paramedic arrived who diagnosed cardiac arrest.

They both started CPR, with Mr Tidbury giving heart compressions and the paramedic applying an oxygen mask.

A defibrillator was used, twice, at the scene to resuscitate the mother of four girls and three boys.

Mr Stupple said: “I was pulling the cases along and suddenly I heard cars bibbing at me. I turned around and Agnes was spreadeagled on the floor.

“So I ran back and she was breathing. I turned her on to her side in the recovery position. There were two young student girls, one of them helped me move her legs to stop her rolling back, and the other was calling the ambulance, then she [Agnes] went into unconsciousness.

“She came to and said: ‘I don’t want to go to hospital. I want to go home,’ then she blacked out again.”

Mr Stupple, 85, of Porter Close, Minster, added: “If that young lad [Mr Tidbury] hadn’t been there, I think it would have been curtains for her.”

Agnes was taken to Medway Maritime Hospital where her body was cooled and she was put into an induced coma to give her a chance to recover.

She is now in a stable condition, speaking and eating on her own, in a coronary care unit at the Gillingham hospital.

Mr Tidbury said: “All credit should really go to the paramedic. I’m just glad to have been of assistance to him, he was superb.”

A spokesman for the South east Coast Ambulance Service said: “Daren should be very proud of his actions that day. It is vital CPR is started ed as quickly as possible.”