Lloyd Hamel was out shopping last month for his birthday when the unthinkable happened.

He was checking out at Zehr’s when he suffered a heart attack. Mary Sever was behind Hamel in line and called for help when he collapsed.

“I saw Lloyd in front of me at checkout. He didn't look like he was feeling too good and he just collapsed from there,” said the Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre lab technician.

Theresa Ross was also shopping and heard the calls for help. She saw that Hamel wasn't breathing. Ross, a nurse at RVH, started CPR.

“I saw Lloyd’s face, he was purple,” she says. “If he didn't have CPR he would have been gone rather quickly.”

Sever and Ross used a defibrillator to help save Hamel’s life.

“Mary wasn't supposed to be there. Theresa, it was her day off. Somebody put them there for that reason,” says Jane Hamel, Hamel’s wife.

Hamel has beaten cancer, suffered a stroke and carries a book that explains why he can't speak. Despite not being able to talk, he considers Ross and Sever his “angels”.

“They gave me back my heart,” Jane says.

Hamel says he's looking forward to tending to some unfinished business at Zehr's.