His heart stopped a mile from the finish. Six months later, he completed the race - The Straits Times

Gareth Hopkins, a paramedic who went into cardiac arrest about 2km from finishing the 2026 London Marathon, with his wife, Jodie, and their two sons.

Forty kilometres into the 2026 London Marathon, Gareth Hopkins called his wife, Jodie.

There was only 2km left – or about a mile, Jodie reminded him. He could walk.

But something in her husband’s voice worried her. Then she heard a commotion, and the call dropped.

Gareth was 43, a paramedic and a father of four. He was running for Age UK in memory of his grandmother. He had raised just over £13,000 (S$18,600).

Now, Jodie, a 38-year-old nurse practitioner, was trying to find him.

She tracked his location and went into a nearby medical tent. She gave the paramedics his race number and asked whether he had been brought in.

Her husband, they told her, was in cardiac arrest.

Police sat her down on the pavement as the seriousness of what was happening began to sink in.

“Everything was a bit of a blur,” she recalled in an interview with The London Standard.

Gareth’s heart stopped for 16 minutes. An ambulance rushed him to St Thomas’ Hospital, directly opposite Parliament building.

He would spend around four weeks in intensive care there, in a coma. Doctors were concerned he might end up in a vegetative state.

Then, after 28 days, Gareth began showing signs of waking. It was one of what Jodie would later call “1,000 little victories”.

On April 26, as he reached Kilometre 25 of the London Marathon, Gareth texted Jodie to say his calves felt as though they were going to explode.

“I don’t like giving up,” he told The Standard.

Fifteen kilometres later came the phone call. Then the ambulance, and intensive care.

Weeks later, after he woke up in hospital and was moved to Northwick Park Hospital’s rehabilitation unit, Gareth found himself in yet another endurance race.

But it was not a marathon. He was simply trying to talk, walk, eat, drink – to get up on his feet and live again.

There had been infections, kidney failure and other complications.

Jodie described the recovery as a “roller coaster”. But she never lost hope.

Gareth had, as he put it, a “family to live for”.

“I always said to them that I’ll try my hardest to get back where I was,” he told The Standard.

“I think because I’m a stubborn and determined person, I was like ‘I just need to get better’, so anything they tell me to do, I’ll do.”

Running long distances, he said, “got me in this, but it also got me out”.

When Gareth was ready to leave Northwick Park after four months, staff lined the corridors.

They applauded. They cheered, and they had a surprise for him. They gave him a London Marathon medal donated by someone who had finished the race.

But that was not enough for Gareth. There was still that last mile. He wanted to close that gap.

“I have to do it for my nan, for Age UK, for everyone who donated,” he said. “And like I said, I don’t like starting things and not finishing. It’ll be a full circle.”

On Nov 1, he closed that loop. He ran the final mile and – six months after he nearly lost his life – crossed the finish line.