The heroic teenager who saved another boy's life when he was hit by a cricket ball said it was the first time he had ever done CPR.

Jamie Bristow-Diamond watched in horror as Dave Tungate, 17, from the opposing Lewes Priory team, was stuck in the chest by the ball and collapsed during a game on Saturday.

As concerned teammates rushed over to the 17-year-old they realised he had stopped breathing.

Jamie, 19, from St Leonards, who plays for Bexhill, decided to step in with the first aid skills he learnt as a lifeguard at a local leisure centre.

He said: “I saw some resuscitation attempts going badly and just decided to try CPR, chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth. I was taught CPR when I was a lifeguard at Freedom Leisure in Hastings but this was the first time I had actually had to do it.

"Practicing on a dummy is nowhere near the reality of a real body.

“At one point I felt him stop breathing. People around me began to say he was dead but I just carried on and eventually he came back.

“I tried to block out everything that was happening around me and just concentrate on what was happening in front of me.”

Jamie, who is studying sport science at the University of Brighton kept David breathing until an ambulance arrived six minutes later.

David, from Uckfield, was in cardiac arrest when paramedics reached him and decided to fly him to a specialist heart unit in Ashford, Kent, at around 3.45pm.

Medical investigations revealed that the force of the ball hitting him below his ribs had triggered a heart arrhythmia.

Jamie, who has tried to take his mind off the incident by revising for up and coming exams, said he would like to thank David properly. He said: “I would like to meet him, play cricket with him again and maybe go for a drink.”

David's father Pete said: “We would like to say a huge thank you to the Bexhill lads, they deserve credit and applause for what they did for my son. He himself has no recollection of what happened.

“Our prime concern is whether there will be any underlying heart problem remaining but only time will tell.