A Good Samaritan has recalled how he went from celebrating his sister’s pregnancy to saving the life of a choking diner in a space of a minute in a Petersfield bar and restaurant.

Taro worker and on-call firefighter Josh Bes has confirmed he was one of three strangers who came together on Sunday, November 19, to save Oliver Lewis in The Folly Wine Bar & Restaurant.

Oliver is now recovering but his girlfriend, Alexandra Rickards, is adamant Mr Lewis wouldn’t have survived without the help of Josh, landlord Jake Benstead and a mystery man who called the emergency services.

As reported last week, Josh and Jake gave lifesaving CPR to Oliver after the diner choked and stopped breathing. It was a whirlwind ten minutes for Josh, who applied compressions along with Jake and gradually brought Oliver back to life.

He said: “It was my sister’s birthday and a while after we sat down for a family meal she told me I was going to be an uncle.

“A few seconds later this man passed out by the cubicle and I was doing compressions.

“When we were doing chest compressions his face went blue. After the food came out some colour came back to his face and he was breathing but quite shallowly. We were told to continue compressions until the AED arrived.

“That arrived and we shocked the casualty. When the ambulance and fire service came in he started to regain consciousness.”

Josh added: “I was quite emotional when told I was going to be an uncle. There’s new life in my sister and then I had to save someone else’s. It was quite a lot to take in.”

“Amazing” was the word that Alexandra called the trio who responded to her distraught cries in The Folly.

She said: “It was his first mouthful – he’s had a cold recently so I thought at first it was just his cough but he realised he had food stuck in his throat.

“He completely collapsed. One of the guys who runs the Folly got involved. They did the Heimlich but that wasn’t working.

“When they were doing compressions a big chunk of meat came out. They were amazing and if they hadn’t been there I couldn’t have done it.

“I’m actually a personal trainer so I’m trained but I went into complete shock. I owe them so much.”

Alexandra believes the ambulance crew – from Andover – took around 15 minutes to arrive while Oliver was later taken to QA Hospital. Oliver has suffered headaches in the week since but is making a decent recovery and cannot thank the trio enough for their amazing reaction.

He said: “It’s going to take a while to get back to normal and last week was a complete write-off.”

“There has been some pressure in my head but there were no breakages.

“The guys doing CPR did everything absolutely spot-on and it goes to show what good training can do.”

Josh gave Alexandra a “massive hug” after meeting up early last week but insists he’s no hero.

He said: “It was a bit of a shock but it’s also part of my job.”