A man who survived an out-of-the-blue cardiac arrest thanks to his wife’s quick-thinking has been sharing his remarkable story with North Derbyshire Radio, as he calls on Derbyshire businesses to give their staff potentially life-saving CPR training.
Rob Jones, co-founder of East Midlands-based training company The Idiopath, is making the appeal to mark Restart a Heart Day on October 16, which raises awareness of cardiac arrest and the importance of knowing how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
Rob had no previous medical conditions or family history to suggest anything was wrong when he collapsed at home in the middle of the night in June 2024.
He had been to work, played football that evening and gone to bed as usual.
But everything changed when his wife Ruby heard him fall out of bed.
“She’s asleep with an eye mask on and earplugs in. She’s quite a deep sleeper,” Rob told North Derbyshire Radio.
“Thankfully, she heard me hitting our bedroom floor.”
Ruby had recently completed a workplace first-aid course, and quickly realised her husband was not breathing normally and was unresponsive.
She called 999 and began CPR, continuing for 18 minutes until emergency services arrived.
Rob said: “Eighteen minutes is a hell of a long time.
“I’m sure most people in that situation would do anything that they possibly can in that moment to ultimately save the person they love.”
He was taken to King’s Mill Hospital in Mansfield, where he was placed in an induced coma for three to four days.
His first clear recollection came almost a week after the cardiac arrest, when he woke up on a hospital ward, surrounded by wires and beeping machines.
The experience came as a huge shock, given he had been healthy and regularly playing football before it happened.
Rob was diagnosed with an idiopathic cardiac arrest — meaning there was no known cause or reason for it.
He says he is acutely aware of how fortunate he is to have survived, and wants to help others have the same chance.
According to the British Heart Foundation, more than 40,000 people experience an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in the UK each year, with fewer than one in ten surviving.
Rob and Ruby have since set up The Idiopath, combining their two perspectives on the experience: Rob as a survivor and Ruby as the person who helped save his life.
Both are now basic life support instructors, delivering CPR training and sharing their story with workplaces, community groups and other audiences.
Rob wants businesses to look beyond simply meeting their basic first-aid requirements, and give their entire workforce the confidence to act in an emergency.
“We don’t want just first aiders in an organisation to know what this is. We want an entire company workforce to know what CPR is, and the steps to follow,” he said.
He hopes the training will help people feel better prepared to respond if a colleague, friend or loved one suffers a cardiac arrest.
“We’re using that real-world lived experience to hopefully make communities safer, stronger and more resilient.”
Rob also hopes to make CPR training engaging and accessible to younger people, adapting the way he and Ruby share their story when working with children in schools.
He said the experience had changed their lives, giving them a sense of responsibility to pass on the knowledge that could help save someone else.
“We’ve got children. It’s the responsibility as a parent, and a good citizen really, to certainly realise that these skills are vital and worth sharing with others.”
Businesses and organisations in Derbyshire can contact Rob and Ruby through The Idiopath to discuss CPR training for their staff.
You can email Rob at rob@theidiopath.com, visit theidiopath.com or find the company on Instagram by searching for The Idiopath.
Hear the full interview with Rob below, where we started by asking Rob: What exactly is an ‘idiopath’?
