An elderly Bermudian man who collapsed in Florida while on a cruise with his family said staff at Port Canaveral saved his life after he collapsed with a heart attack.

Peter Rego, 72, had just left a cruise ship when he collapsed, but was helped by a group of port employees and medical professionals. Mr Rego said in a video posted online after his release from hospital: “God bless them all. Deep in my heart I appreciate what they did for me and I will never, ever forget it.”

The Bermudian said the last thing he remembered was his sight becoming blurred as he talked to his daughter at the bottom of the ship’s gangway on August 4.

Sean Summers, a port worker, said he ran to help Mr Rego after he heard people scream.

Mr Summers said: “I noticed a man sprawled out on the ground. I grabbed a radio and said I need paramedics, ‘Asap’.”

His co-worker, Josh Clayton, ran to get a portable defibrillator and another port worker, Stephanie Dobson, stayed with Mr Rego.

Ms Dobson said: “We were doing CPR. There was no pulse noted. Josh was running back with the defibrillator from the terminal.

“We shocked him once and there was a return of the pulse.”

She added: “If he had been in a shuttle on the way home or to the airport, it might have been a different outcome.”

Mr Rego, from St George’s, said he was told after he awoke that he had had two blocked arteries and that surgeons had put in four stents to correct the problem.

Kathy Longworth, Mr Rego’s daughter, said in a video posted by the port authority: “Thank you for being there — for being at the right place at the right time.

“Thank you for just stepping in, and not thinking twice about what you were doing. You saved his life.”