A MOTHER-OF-FOUR who survived a heart attack due to the actions of quick-thinking Good Samaritans has applauded the 97 secondary schools for signing up to receive life-saving training.

Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust staff will teach cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to about 20,000 children in what will be the biggest event of its kind ever seen in the world.

Participating schools in North Yorkshire include Queen Mary’s and Cundall Manor schools, near Thirsk,

Allertonshire School, Northallerton, Eskdale School and Caedmon College, Whitby, Norton College, Norton,

St Martin’s School, Ampleforth, Ashville College, Harrogate and Queen Ethelburga's College, near Green Hammerton.

Caroline Kimberling, of Poppleton, near York, said she had been with two of her sons when she went into cardiac arrest at a cinema last October.

After the 37-year-old's sons raised the alarm, a member of the cinema's staff trained in first aid and an off-duty nurse started resuscitating her.

When an ambulance crew arrived, they used a defibrillator to provide an electric shock to her heart to restore a natural rhythm.

Since spending two weeks at York Hospital, Mrs Kimberling has made a full recovery and has returned to work as a teacher at Marton-cum-Grafton Primary School, near Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire.

She said: “I feel it is incredibly important that as many people as possible learn how to deliver CPR, including schoolchildren.

"I believe they are every bit as able as adults to deliver CPR.

"We never know when somebody just may need it, young or old.”

Her husband, Daniel, a GP at Gale Farm Surgery in Acomb, York, added: “The chain of survival that first aiders talk about does not look like a diagram on a flip chart; the result of this learning is not a certificate, it's a Caroline - a wife, mum, teacher, friend who is alive because of someone being prepared to do something."