Stéphane Demers was just 50 metres from finishing a half-marathon last year when everything started to fade to black. He collapsed to the ground and woke up in hospital with his wife holding his hand.

“It was a really nice day, a beautiful day,” he told CTV Montreal. Images from the race show a broad smile on the 46-year-old’s face. “I was feeling great and having fun, and then nothing.”

Demers suffered cardiac arrest, which left him lying on the pavement and without a pulse for eight minutes. Clinically dead, Demers’ marathon quickly turned into a race to save his life.

After several minutes of CPR, cardiac massages, and the use of an automatic external defibrillator by a team of first responders led by Dr. Francois de Champlain, Demers’ heart was beating again.

A year later, he’s ready to lace up his running shoes again at the Montreal Marathon, but not without the man he credits for saving his life that day. Demers became fast friends with de Champlain.

The pair has pledged to run a 5-kilometre race this year to raise awareness about defibrillator technology. De Champlain plans on carrying one of the lifesaving devices with him in a backpack to demonstrate their portability, and to keep his running mate safe.

“I’m sure it won’t be necessary this time,” said Demers.

The Heart and Stroke Foundation estimates as many as 40,000 cardiac arrests occur each year in Canada. That’s an average of one every 12 minutes. The organization says thousands of lives could be saved through greater public access to the portable devices used to identify cardiac rhythms and deliver a shock to correct abnormal activity in the heart.

Most modern defibrillators don’t require the user to have any medical training. They simply attach to the chest of the person in distress, and walk the user through a series of simple steps with audible instructions. When combined with CPR, statistics show the device can increase the likelihood of surviving cardiac arrest by more than 75 per cent.

Promoting greater access has personal significance to de Champlain. His father, a cardiologist, died of a heart attack on a countryside bike ride in Vermont because there was no one around who knew how to help.

De Champlain started a foundation to honour his father’s memory and advocate for increased access to prehospital cardiovascular emergency care.

De Champlain also launched a smartphone app last year that locates the nearest defibrillator in public places in Quebec last year.

Demers says the cause has become close to his heart as well.

“For me it’s a second chance in my life … to thank the people that made it possible,” he said.