An autonomous drone has helped to save the life of a man who collapsed on a driveway in Sweden.

The patient had gone into cardiac arrest and was noticed by a doctor who was walking to work in the city of Trollhättan.

According to an article on inews, Dr Mustafa Ali saw the 71-year-old man, who was initially shovelling snow, lying on the ground unconscious.

“I immediately understood that something was wrong and rushed to help. The man had no pulse, so I started doing CPR while asking another bystander to call 112 [the Swedish emergency number],” said Dr Ali.

Shortly after the call was made, Dr Ali saw an object flying above his head, an object that would go on to save the man’s life. This would turn out to be a drone with a defibrillator in hand.

The drones are operated by Everdrone, a Swedish company that focuses on advanced drone operations. It is a service that has been made possible thanks to a partnership with the Centre for Resuscitation Science at Swedish university Karolinska Institutet, the Västra Götaland regional council, and SOS Alarm who are the national emergency operator in Sweden.

“I can’t put into words how thankful I am to this new technology and the speedy delivery of the defibrillator. If it wasn’t for the drone I probably wouldn’t be here”, said the man, who has since made a full recovery.

“This is a truly revolutionary technology that needs to be implemented all over; sudden cardiac arrests can happen to anyone, not just old people with arteriosclerosis.”