A heart patient claims to have "died" 32 times in just 20 minutes.

Leslie Hackwell is alive after a succession of cardiac arrests.

"I was neither alive or dead. It was really quite remarkable that they managed to save me. They did an unbelievable job."

Cardiologist Dr. Nick West says that it is unusual for a patient to suffer as many cardiac arrests as Hackwell did.

"It had already been quite an ordeal but when I was taken up to the coronary ward, I flat-lined 32 times in 20 minutes."