Packer famously remarked, after he was revived from a cardiac arrest, "I've been to the other side and let me tell you there's nothing there".

Mr Kyle can't tell you about his experiences as he lay unconscious outside Dandenong Hospital last month after a cardiac arrest, with two doctors and three nurses working frantically to revive him.

Nor can the 39-year-old Doveton man tell his family why, about 4am on August 24, when he suffered chest pains, he called a taxi - rather than an ambulance - to take him to hospital or why he didn't call his mother, in the next room.

Dandenong taxi driver Salin Adoujaber, who picked him up, has helped to fill in some of the gaps.

"He told me 'Please take me to hospital'. I looked at his face and he was so yellow and could hardly speak."

Mr Adoujaber drove to Dandenong Hospital emergency and raced in to get help. When doctors and nurses pulled Mr Kyle from the taxi he was blue, which meant he had been without oxygen for at least five minutes.

It took more than 10 shocks from a defibrillator to revive him and then he was rushed by ambulance to MonashHeart Clayton where he was put into an induced coma for 36 hours but doctors warned his family to expect the worst: without oxygen for so long, it was probable he had suffered serious brain damage.

Friday, August 26, was his D-Day as Mr Kyle's doctors gradually raised his body temperature to 36 degrees before reviving him.

Four days after his mercy trip, Mr Adoujaber was contacted by Mr Kyle's brother-in-law, who thanked him for his quick thinking and told him his passenger was doing well.

In fact, Mr Kyle's doctors are calling him 'The Miracle Man'. His cardiologist, Dr Emily Kotschet, told the Weekly there was no apparent brain damage.

Mr Adoujaber called in last week to check on progress. "He looks so much better than last time I saw him. I hope he stays that way."