A Bermudian living in Canada has been hailed as a hero after a saving a woman?s life by giving her CPR.

Don Perry, a 65-year-old bus driver, was the first to come to the aid of Diane Aronson, 54, after she crashed after slumping unconscious in her car after suffering from a potentially lethal heart problem.

?I just did what I had to do,? Mr Perry told The Brampton Guardian last week.

Mrs. Aronson sideswiped Mr. Perry?s mini school bus before hitting a transport truck head on.

She suffered only a cut on the forehead and bruising in the crash, but when Perry got to her he realised she wasn?t breathing.

It had been 45 years since Mr. Perry had taken a mandatory CPR course as a young orderly at St Brendan?s.

?I never used it,? said Mr. Perry who worked at St. Brendan?s for five years.

He had seen the woman slumped over right after she ?gave my bus a kiss?, so he knew she was in trouble.

?I went in on the passenger?s side. The air bag was inflated, there was all kinds of smoke in the car.?

He radioed his dispatcher from the bus and asked that she call 911, checked the car to make sure it wasn?t on fire, then got back inside.

He was nervous and unsure of exactly what her injuries were, he told the Brampton newspaper, but the basics of CPR came back to him, and he knew he had to get Aronson breathing again.

?I wondered if I was qualified to use it, but I had a choice to make. It was either her life, or I give her CPR,? he said.

?So I made the decision. Nobody else was around. There were people there, but they were just standing around looking. I did what I remembered to do. I started to breathe in her mouth and she started to breathe and cough.?

But it was short-lived. She stopped breathing again, her arms were limp and she had no pulse.

Perry said a man stepped out from the crowd and said he worked for the city and was trained in CPR, offering to help.

He performed the chest compressions and Perry performed the breathing while they waited for emergency services. When firefighters arrived, the pair was told to continue CPR until paramedics arrived.

?Mr. Perry, we all believe, has saved this woman?s life,? said Rick Evans, a co-worker who visited Mrs. Aronson in the hospital on Sunday. ?Her heart had stopped. If it hadn?t been for his CPR, from everything we gather, it was that CPR from the point of the accident until the paramedics arrived, that kept her going.?

Paramedics agreed the men performed ?life-sustaining? CPR.

Paramedics used a defibrillator to ?shock? her heart several times on the way to the hospital, according to her husband, Irwin. She was revived at the hospital.

?I?m glad her family has her back,? Mr. Perry said.

The woman?s husband, Irwin Aronson, said Mr. Perry was a hero.

?He went to the assistance of another human being. That is heroic in itself,? he said.

He said he knew his wife was well loved, but didn?t realise how much until now.

?She?s the strongest person I know,? Mr. Aronson said. ?She?s an incredible lady.?

Mr. Perry left Bermuda with his Canadian wife in 1972 but came back to live for a spell about 20 years ago and set up a maintenance business but then returned to Canada.