A keen footballer is making a remarkable recovery after collapsing during a match because of a rare heart condition. 

Scott Fleming, 27, was unaware he suffered from the condition, which is almost always fatal if undetected, before his dramatic collapse. 

The fitness fanatic’s heart stopped several times as paramedics battled to save him and hospital doctors told his mother he would not survive. 

Surgeons had to pass a wire into his heart through the femoral artery in his left leg in a tricky operation called radio frequency catheter ablation. 

But now, after the life-saving surgery to cure the rare Wolfe-Parkinson-White Syndrome, which can cause the heart to beat abnormally quickly, Mr Fleming is defying doctors by fighting his was back to full health. 

After recently completing his first gym session since leaving hospital, the design technician from Blackburn, West Lothian, plans on being back playing football in his normal left back position by next month. 

He said: “I really am a dead man walking.  I have looked all over the internet and not found another person who went through what I did and survived. 

“It is amazing that I could be the only person in the world who has lived through this kind of thing.  I had no idea I had the condition.  I am very lucky to have survived.” 

A spokesman from the charity Cardiac Risk in the Young said: “It is extremely rare for someone to be resuscitated when they suffer something like this.”   

Find out more about Wolfe Parkinson White Syndrome