Former Australian Cricketer Ryan Campbell Suffers Heart Attack; Fighting For Life In England

Terrible news has emerged with former Australian cricketer Ryan Campbell suffering a heart attack in England.

The 50-year-old, who played two one-day internationals for Australia in 2002, remains in an induced coma and is being cared for in the intensive care unit of a Stoke-on-Trent hospital, in the West Midlands region of England.

The news was broken by radio host Gareth Parker on Tuesday morning, choking up as he detailed Campbell's predicament.

"As of 45 minutes ago he was still unresponsive, although under the care of his doctors he has made some attempts successfully to breathe on his own. This news is a real shock to his family and friends back home in Australia, who learned about it on Easter Sunday."

Campbell was spending time with his two children at a playground on Sunday when he began having trouble breathing and he collapsed.

A passerby, who had luckily just completed a CPR course spotted Campbell and performed CPR before paramedics arrived on the scene.

"Ryan had a pulse when paramedics arrived (at the playground) about 15 minutes later, he has been in hospital since," Parker said.

"He has begun partially breathing on his own, his blood pressure is good, so those are good signs - doctors don't believe there's damage to the heart but they haven't been able to figure out exactly what's going on just yet."

Campbell was in England with his family to visit his mother-in-law with the 50-year-old visiting his home state of Perth just last week.

While Campbell only featured for Australia twice, when iconic wicketkeeper-batter Adam Gilchrist was absent to spend time with his newborn son, he carved up a terrific domestic career for Western Australia.

During his illustrious 98-game first-class career between 1994 and 2006, Campbell starred for with 6009 runs at an average of 36.31.