A FLINTSHIRE dad whose daughter “died” for 20 minutes as the result of a rare heart condition has won his campaign to get all Welsh secondary schools to teach life-saving first aid techniques as part of the curriculum.

But his mission does not end there!

Paul Maguire, who lives in Gwernymynydd, near Mold, has been told by doctors it’s the same genetic problem – Long QT Syndrome – that also claimed the life of his beloved wife, Janene, in February 2000 at the age of just 34.

It’s caused by a faulty gene that’s so rare it only affects a handful of families across the UK while between 12 and 15 young people aged between 14 and 34 die each week from sudden cardiac arrest.

Fast forward two decades and Paul's daughter, Cara, collapsed on August 8, 2020, and her heart stopped beating for more than 20 minutes.

She was resuscitated by a former soldier trained in First Aid who stepped in and performed CPR until paramedics arrived - something which ultimately saved her life.

Now recovered and back home, Cara, her dad and the rest of the family have been calling for life-saving first aid techniques - including CPR and using a defibrillator – to be taught to all pupils across the UK.

Delyn MP Rob Roberts got firmly behind the campaign, and in April - the Welsh Government announced that CPR would be added to the secondary school national curriculum in 2022.

And Paul now wants to go one step further and get gazebos and tents set up at summer fairs across the country where CPR can be taught.

He told the Leader: "If the former soldier didn't happen to be in the vicinity when my daughter collapsed, I would have almost certainly lost my daughter the same way I lost my wife.

"I think CPR is something everyone should learn, and it's a huge step in the right direction with it being added to the national curriculum in Wales.

"But even so, we still need to do a huge amount of work in educating people on how to perform live-saving first aid as there are about 6,000 cardiac arrests outside of hospitals in Wales a year.

"People who collapse have a much better than eight per cent chance of survival if someone can perform CPR on them.

"So my mission is ensure everyone knows how to do it."