Tommy Price, now 31, was found face down in snow on a Lake District mountain with no heartbeat after hypothermia struck during a fell run in January 2022. He was revived by mountain rescue volunteers and, remarkably, completed the London Marathon just nine months later.
Price, a former basketball player and bodybuilder from Huddersfield, was 26 and in excellent physical condition when he and his friend Max set out to run the Bob Graham Round, a legendary fell-running trail in Cumbria. The temperature was 0°C at lower levels but between minus 15°C and minus 20°C higher up with wind chill. The pair had also run through a river, making them much colder.
Hypothermia sets in
Price remembers nothing of the run itself. His last memory is of parking up in Keswick. Max later told him that as he was running up Blencathra, he started dropping to his knees and saying he couldn't carry on. 'That's when the hypothermia set in. I was delirious,' Price said.
As Max ran back and forth trying to keep warm while helping his friend, Price's legs stopped working and he began sliding down the mountain, 'ripping my bum open'. Doctors later told him he was lucky not to need skin grafts. With their phones out of battery, they were about a mile from a farm when Price's legs seized up completely. Max wrapped him in an emergency survival bag before running downhill to call 999 and Mountain Rescue.
Rescue and revival
When rescuers reached Price, he was 100 metres up the mountain, face down in the snow. They rolled him over and started CPR, then used a defibrillator. 'They gave me three electric shocks and I was in ventricular fibrillation, so I had no heartbeat. My heart wouldn't work because I was too cold,' he said.
Keswick Mountain Rescue Team volunteers Donald Ferguson and Jonny Hume carried out manual CPR for an hour and a half before paramedics could use a LUCAS machine, which provides mechanical chest compressions. Price was flown by helicopter to the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, where life support had been prepared. As they arrived, the machine ran out of battery and team doctor John Ferris had to resume manual CPR.
Ferris later said that becoming so cold before his heart stopped probably helped save Price's life, as the freezing temperatures protected his brain and other organs. At hospital, Price was placed on an ECMO machine, a form of advanced life support that temporarily takes over the function of the heart and lungs.
Recovery and return to running
Price regained consciousness after five days in an induced coma. There was no brain damage, but he had nerve damage in his hands and feet. 'It was like being a baby again. I needed a lot of help,' he said. The nerve damage is permanent, although symptoms have disappeared and he has regained full mobility. The only lasting effect is that his hands become cold much more quickly than before.
After three weeks in hospital, Price left. Nine months after his heart stopped, he completed the London Marathon in three hours and 10 minutes, raising £10,000 for Keswick Mountain Rescue. He has since returned to fell running, completed a 120km race in the Brecon Beacons a year after his accident, and set up his own dog-walking business, covering around 100km every week.
'I can't thank John Ferris, Jonny and Donald enough. They saved my life – and they are all volunteers. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't be here today,' Price said.
