Leicester ambassador Alan Birchenall feared heart attack would kill him
Wednesday 15 March 2017 16:44, UK
Alan Birchenall has told Sky Sports News HQ he cannot wait to get back to the King Power after surviving a heart attack.
The former Leicester player and current club ambassador presented the Premier League trophy in May and had not missed a home game in 40 years before his heart attack at an awards ceremony in the city in January.
Birchenall's life was saved with the help of a defibrillator he had fought to distribute as part of his work with the Foxes Foundation charity, but not before he had gone seven minutes without a pulse.
Speaking in detail publicly about the ordeal for the first time he said: "Something just came over me. I think I just said I don't feel very good then that was it - I collapsed.
"I was in the ambulance and I remember someone saying there's a slow pulse. I did think then 'this is me on the exit here'. I didn't realise already apparently for seven minutes I'd gone.
"All the circumstances came together to why I'm here now. Psychologically if you put these things in: had I been at home, had I not been there, had there not been a defib.
"We have raised money at the football club - the Foxes Foundation - we've given away hundreds of defibs around the city and county.
"When I got involved five or six years ago if someone told me that five or six years down the line one of them would save your life - its crazy."
Birchenall watched Leicester's Champions League win over Sevilla at home, accompanied by the club doctor Ian Patchett who is recuperating from an operation.
He said: "There's Doc Patch who is normally at the game and then there's me who has never missed a game - up until this has happened to me - in 40-odd years. To see the boys do what they did - it was an incredible evening.
"But to see it at home eating fish and chips didn't feel right somehow."
Leicester can go on and win the competition, according to Birchenall, who hopes to be well enough to attend the home leg of the quarter-final.
