Hero dog groomer saves life of lorry driver and father-of-two following cardiac arrest in Cirencester town centre

Stuart James, a 41-year-old delivery driver for furniture retailer DFS, collapsed by the Woolmarket while taking a sofa to a Cirencester flat and had to be airlifted to Swindon Great Western Hospital.

The father-of-two from Bristol said that if it wasn’t for Dawn Baynes, he would have been dead before paramedics arrived.

Dawn, 38, owner of Cirencester Dog Grooming, was in her salon on Friday, March 3, when a colleague told her a man had collapsed by the Woolmarket.

She recalled: “I just grabbed a load of dog grooming towels and went out. I was just thinking that I needed to save this man’s life. He wasn’t breathing. He had no pulse. I gave him CPR until paramedics arrived.

“I spent 13 years in the army so I suppose my military background and training kicked in.

“Paramedics later phoned me up and said if I had not been there, he would have been dead.”

Paramedics were there within five minutes of the 999 call, a spokesman for the South Western Ambulance Service Trust told the Standard.

(Dawn Baynes, Cirencester dog groomer)

Dawn, who has been thanked by Stuart and DFS for her actions, added: “It was quite an emotional time when I went to visit him the following morning.

“We both broke down in tears and he said to me, ‘can we be friends for life?’”

Stuart told the Standard he began feeling “weird and sick” in the morning just before his 7am shift was due to start. 

He said he could not remember collapsing but recalled his left arm, elbow and hand “tingling”.

“I remember going to the customer’s house and walking back out,” he said. “My workmate went to the lorry to grab the sofa, that was when I collapsed.

“He thought I had gone to the customer’s house, but after waiting for a few minutes, he went to the front of the lorry and saw me dead on the floor. 

“He put me in the recovery position but I was gone. I was foaming at the mouth and my eyes had gone.”

Stuart has been granted six weeks off work to recover after his near-death experience.

He told the Standard: “Dawn is my hero. I want to thank her for giving me a second chance, for being able to be there for my kids.”

Dawn’s heroic gesture has also inspired an elderly couple, who live nearby to where the drama unfolded, to learn first aid.

The dog groomer with a military background explained the importance of first aid: “It’s a basic necessity that everybody should know because not everybody knows what to do in that instance.”

The Woolmarket will soon have a defibrillator installed as a result of the incident earlier this month, Peter Noest part-owner of the Woolmarket confirmed.