THEY say cats have nine lives.

Retired electrical engineer Ray Lecomber is feeling just the same.

The Shelley man cheated death NINE times after heart attacks and has now heaped praise on the ambulance crew that fought to save his life.

Mr Lecomber had to be shocked back to life nine times by Welsh Ambulance Service emergency staff and doctors using a defibrillator, after he collapsed on holiday in Tenby, in Pembrokeshire.

He spent weeks in hospital but is now at home and recovered.

The 65-year-old had been in the garden of the cottage at Kilgetty when he went inside for a break and fell asleep in a chair.

His wife, Brenda, was unable to wake him and was concerned at the strange snoring noises he was making.

She called an ambulance crew and Tenby Ambulance Station paramedics Mark Rice and Nick Tebbutt answered Brenda’s call, along with second-year paramedic degree student Keri Morgan.

Nick, a paramedic for 19 years, said he had never dealt with a patient quite like Ray before.

He said: “Ray was sat in the chair unable to understand what all the fuss was about. He was a little pale but everything else was fine.

“We asked if he’d let Keri examine him, which he agreed to, and Keri undertook base line observations including a respiratory and circulatory assessments as well as checking his blood glucose and temperature.

“In fact everything was within normal limits for Ray’s age and after conducting an ECG test, which also proved normal, we decided this was a false alarm although Brenda had been right to call us.”

But Mark, a paramedic for eight years, says there was a sudden change.

He said: “We were talking to the family and getting a bit of health history from Brenda when Keri noticed an abnormal rhythm on the defib screen. She thought one of the leads had come adrift as it seemed so strange but they were all still attached.