Jarryd Hayne has found himself at the centre of a life-threatening prison emergency during a game of touch footy with other inmates at the Geoffrey Pearce Correctional Centre near Windsor, northwest of Sydney.
The convicted rapist and former NRL superstar was playing footy with around 20 prisoners when one inmate suddenly collapsed in the middle of the game due to a heart attack.
Vision obtained exclusively by The Sunday Telegraph shows Hayne and other prisoners rushing to the prisoner to provide aid after his collapse on the field.
The paper reports Hayne, 35, held up a towel to protect the man from the sun while prison officers worked to revive him.
“The inmates had said he just passed out. He tried to get up at one stage but then collapsed again,” prison guard Peter Terry told The Sunday Telegraph.
“He was breathing at that stage, one of the officers was checking his pulse and talking to him, and then all of a sudden he checked out again and there was no pulse so we rolled him over and I started CPR.”
Nurses arrived at the scene a short time later to apply a defibrillator to the man’s chest and continue performing CPR until an ambulance arrived 25 minutes later.
The man was rushed to hospital where he was placed in an induced coma.
He ultimately survived the ordeal and returned to the prison two weeks later to thank the guards involved in saving his life.
“He is fine, I caught up with him a couple weeks ago when he returned from hospital, he’s in a wheelchair at the moment,” officer Terry said.
“He had a few displaced ribs but that’s minor compared to what he was going through and what could have happened. He was in good spirits.
“It was a surreal unusual feeling going through that, but more surreal he came and thanked me.”
News.com.au has contacted Geoffrey Pearce Correctional Centre for comment.
Corrective Services Commissioner Kevin Corcoran applauded the officers involved for save the prisoner’s life.
“I’m immensely proud of the team’s ability to act in a time sensitive, high-pressure environment; their skills mean this man is still with us today,” Mr Corcoran said.
You can read the full story and watch the exclusive video in The Sunday Telegraph
Hayne caught up in $780,000 prison scam
The medical emergency comes weeks after it emerged Hayne had been conned out of $780,000 in Bitcoin by one of his jail inmates during his previous stint at Cooma jail.
Ishan Seenar Sappideen allegedly told Hayne that he’d made millions of dollars investing with Australian billionaire Mike Cannon-Brooke.
The conman convinced Hayne and other inmates that he could deliver big returns if they invested with him, according to The Daily Telegraph.
Sappideen is serving a maximum 12-year sentence after being found guilty of stealing $4.6m from his friends and family in a Ponzi scheme.
The former Sydney Grammar student allegedly received more than $2 million from Hayne and at least six other inmates in Cooma jail between 2020 and 2022.
Sappideen was moved to a different prison due to fears for his safety following complaints over his behaviour which led to Corrective Services NSW’s investigations.
“Earlier this year, CSNSW intelligence officers became aware of allegations an inmate at Cooma Correctional Centre was attempting to coerce and advise fellow inmates to make transactions on the financial markets,” a CSNSW spokeswoman told The Daily Telegraph.
“The accused inmate … has since had his security classification reviewed to enable a higher level of supervision and less freedom.
CSNSW refers suspected criminal activity to the Police Corrections Intelligence Unit who share intelligence with relevant state and federal police.”
The report claimed Hayne’s money was transferred by people outside jail who had access to his bank accounts.
Hayne was in Cooma jail after being found guilty of raping a woman at her home in October 2019 and sentenced to five years and nine months jail.
He won an appeal in February 2022 and was granted a retrial only to be found guilty again and jailed for at least three years on May 12.
Hayne’s legal team had filed a notice of intention to appeal in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal.
It is not known what the grounds of the appeal will be, but Hayne has continued to profess his innocence, despite a jury of seven men and five women finding him guilty of both charges of performing oral and digital sex on the woman without her consent on NRL grand final night in 2018.