A BRIERLEY Hill family are urging people to learn CPR after they learned first-hand the importance of the life-saving skill.

Jenny and Mark Roberts are making the call to mark Restart a Heart Day, which will see thousands of people across the Midlands trained to carry out CPR today, Wednesday, October 16.

Mark's life was saved last year when friends carried out urgent CPR after he suddenly went into cardiac arrest while on holiday at a caravan park in Worcestershire.

Thanks to their quick-thinking, they were able to buy Mark vital time until ambulance crews arrived.

Jenny said: "We all think we're never going to need it, and then it happens and just that little bit of knowledge could save someone's life."

Paramedics John Fryer, Lorraine McHugh, Michelle Adams and Anna Borecha were quickly on the scene, but that was just the start of the fight to save Mark.

In hospital he was put in to a coma and was given a 2% chance of survival. Defying the odds, he woke up on the third day.

Jenny said: “The caravan isn’t huge which made everything much more difficult, but throughout, the crews never gave up and made sure everyone was aware of what was going on."

The pair said they found it difficult to put into words how much it meant to meet the people who saved Mark's life when they met with ambulance crews earlier this year.

West Midlands Ambulance Service is also calling on people to learn CPR, to save more people who find themselves in situations like Mark.

Survival chances decrease by 10% for every minute a patient does not receive CPR, the service says.