A teenager was ‘brought back from the dead’ after a cricket ball hit him in the chest and he stopped breathing.

Talented David Tungate, 17, was batting for his team Lewes Priory when the speeding ball struck him just below his ribs and he staggered backwards and collapsed.

Team mates watched in horror and started to cry as the batsman stopped breathing and they believed he was dead.

Heroic 18-year-old Jamie Bristow-Diamond, who was playing for opposing team Bexhill, saved his life.

Jamie, who learned first aid at university, administered CPR until the Sussex Air Ambulance arrived.

David was rushed to the William Harvey Hospital specialist cardiac unit in Ashford, Kent, where doctors found the force of the ball had triggered a heart arrhythmia which caused him to collapse.

The air ambulance landed on the pitch in Polgrove Road, in Bexhill, at 3.15pm and found the teenager breathing again, but in cardiac arrest.

Lewes Priory captain, Imran Khan, said: “The ball hit him below his ribs and he fell over. We assumed he was winded and would just get up but he didn’t.

“He was lying on his back, pale and really struggling to breathe.

“We were by his side, trying to revive him, we were crying and then he stopped breathing and we thought he was dead.

“One of the other players had first aid and was trying so hard, he wouldn’t give up and then suddenly he brought him back from the dead.

“At that point the ambulance arrived and paramedics took over.”

David was last night conscious and talking in hospital, but it is not yet known how the suspected heart arrhythmia may affect him in the future.