The Lavington dragon boat team member had suffered a heart attack at the tail-end of a stint at Wodonga's Gateway Lakes.

"It was a bit of a come-and-try fun day with a heap of kids there and they had finished and we were packing up," Mr Earl, 61, said.

"We had just put the last K1 in the shed and then bang I hit the deck."

Alarmed onlookers yelled for help and the noise reached 19-year-old Beth Knox, of Merimbula, 50 metres from shore.

Ms Knox added: "By the time I got there he had been down for probably a couple of minutes and he was blue."

Ms Knox is studying speech pathology at Charles Sturt University, Albury Campus and quickly summoned up the first aid know-how learnt at Pambula Surf Life Saving Club.

"I had been preparing myself since I was 13 when I got involved with the bronze medallion at the surf lifesaving club, but to be put in a situation like this not at the beach was weird," Ms Knox said.

"About five minutes in I thought this is someone's life, I've got to do everything I can...I had to keep calm and do the best I could."

As Mr Earl coughed up blood, Ms Knox struggled to keep him alive, with his pulse lost at times.

The only defibrillator nearby was 800 metres away behind a locked door at the Brave Hearts club rooms.

Helpers kicked the door in to take it to Mr Earl and it jolted him twice before ambulance officers arrived, about 25 minutes after Ms Knox's CPR efforts began.

The attack was caused by plaque dislodging from an artery and blocking the oxygen supply to his brain.

Days after the collapse, the father of two had two stents put in his heart at a Melbourne hospital and recently resumed training with his Warriors dragon boat clubmates.

Mr Earl and Ms Knox have since become friends –  with his wife Coralie and children Simon, 23, and Emily, 17, eternally grateful.

"She said 'thanks for giving me back my husband and giving back my children their father', that was pretty cool," Ms Knox said.