AN off-duty nurse saved the life of a friend who had collapsed and stopped breathing just days after training on use of a defibrillator.

Maureen Youngson was enjoying a day out at a motorbike rally when she was told someone had collapsed.

The community psychiatric nurse rushed to the scene and discovered the patient was her friend Alex Wilson who had turned blue and stopped breathing.

Along with motor neurone nurse Andy Bethell who had also attended the rally she started working on him in a bid to get his heart started.

However a local dashed to the scene with a defibrillator machine kept in the village which Maureen, 52, had been training on just days before.

Maureen, from Overtown near Wishaw, said: “I was serving at the bar when someone asked me to call 999 because a man had collapsed.

“I rushed to help and realised it was my friend Alex Wilson who I know through our shared interest in bikes.”

Maureen and another nurse gave him mouth to mouth and CPR and Maureen took control of the defibrillator when it arrived.

She said: “It was scary. I had a refresher course on use of the defibrillator just two weeks before but in my 35 years as a nurse I have never had to use any emergency procedure.

“When I went into the hall I noticed it was Alex and my stomach was churning but I went into automatic pilot.

“I attached the defibrillator pads to Alex’s chest and the machine announced a shock was required so I pushed the button.”

Alex eventually started to respond but Maureen’s work was not yet over.

She said: “No sooner had we finished helping Alex than we had to attend to his wife Elaine who had just fainted.”

Maureen, who works with NHS Lanarkshire’s community mental health team for older people, was later told by a doctor treating 67-year-old Mr Wilson that using the defibrillator had saved his life.

Since the incident, he has had a pacemaker fitted and his wife Elaine praised Maureen and fellow nurse Andy Bethell.

She said: “We have been left in no doubt by the cardiology doctors that Alex and would not have survived were it not for the combined actions of Maureen and Andy.”