A TEACHER is being hailed a hero for helping save the life an elderly man who stopped breathing during a school concert.

Physics teacher Barry Berndes, 50, sprang into action at Latymer School’s end of year Gala on July 14, helping to resuscitate 67-year-old member of the audience after he suffered a heart attack and stopped breathing for ten minutes.

The elderly man, who was accompanying the grandparent of a 14-year-old girl who was performing in the concert, had collapsed in a gallery in the school hall after telling his companion he was feeling unwell and was going outside to get some fresh air.

With the music of the Pixar film The Incredibles still playing in the background, Mr Berndes, started giving the man CPR.

He had returned from a first aid course just six weeks before, and succeeded in starting his breathing for a short time before it stopped again.

He said: “Very soon after I found him he was unconscious and not breathing. He was looking quite blue, but I thought well I will do what I have been trained to do.

"The paramedics had to shock him three times but apparently he was conscious when I went home at 10.30pm.

"Apparently he had come to look after a grandparent who was old and frail and then himself had this massive heart attack. He lives on his own, so I was thinking if he had had the attack there he would probably be dead.”

Thanks to the teacher’s efforts, the Haselbury Road School has now bought a defibrillator, which costs about £2,000, and will train ten members of staff to use it in September.

About 15 members of staff are already trained in first-aid, while all its Year 9 pupils are sent on a first aid course.

Mr Berndes, who has been at the school for 27 years and is also a football referee, said: “I think a lot of public buildings should have them. They are easy to use and can save lives.

“People say you are such a hero, but I am just grateful I was in the right place at the right time and knew what to do.”

Daria Cracknell, a paramedic who attended the patient, said that Mr Berndes' actions had "kept him alive".

She said: "When we arrived at the scene a member of the public was performing basic life support on the patient, which effectively kept him alive while we were on the way."

Dave Simpson, managing director of STS Complete Health and Safety, the company which provided Mr Berndes’ training, said: “The man’s life was saved due to good first aid and the fact the ambulance was called so quickly. If a defibrillator can get to an unconscious patient within three minutes the chance of survival goes up to 75 per cent.”