A Spanish actor suffered a cardiorespiratory arrest while performing in a play at the Classical Theatre Festival of Alcántara in Cáceres, western Spain, last Friday and was saved thanks to an automated external defibrillator on site.
Jesús Lozano, aged 55, collapsed while playing the lead role in the play ‘Alfonso X: La Última Cantiga’. Initially thought to have fainted due to high temperatures, it was later realized that he was experiencing cardiac problems.
After being attended to by medical services at the Convent of San Benito de Alcántara, where the festival was held, the actor was transported “conscious and stable” to the Hospital of Cáceres, spending the night there.
La representación “Alfonso X, la última cantiga”, ha sido suspendida después de que el protagonista haya sufrido un desvanecimiento en el inicio del espectáculo. Tras ser atendido por los servicios sanitarios, ha sido trasladado consciente y estable al hospital de Cáceres. pic.twitter.com/xgk1CeEE4M
— Festival Alcántara (@teatroalcantara) August 1, 2025
On social media, actress Inma Cedeño, Lozano’s partner and founder of María de Melo Producciones, the company responsible for the production, revealed that “his heart stopped” and that the actor “was saved” thanks to a “defibrillator and people able to act quickly and without hesitation”.
“The theatre not only gives us life. This time, it saved Jesús’s life. During the performance of ‘Alfonso X: La Ultima Cantiga’ at the Alcántara Classical Theatre Festival, Jesús suffered a cardiac arrest. It wasn’t a faint or a heart attack. His heart stopped,” explained the actress on Facebook.
“And he was saved because we were in a prepared place, with a defibrillator and people capable of acting swiftly and without hesitation,” she added. “The doctors firmly stated: if this had happened at home, we probably wouldn’t be telling this story today.”
The actress confirmed that her partner is “stable, conscious, and in good spirits”. “He ate, slept, and began to regain strength. The most critical part is now behind us,” she stated.
Jesús Lozano has already “been transferred from the Hospital of Cáceres to the Hospital of Mérida and is being monitored and cared for with all necessary diligence”.
In her statement, Cedeño also expressed “special gratitude” to the director of the Classical Theatre Festival of Alcántara “for her immediate and exemplary response to the health emergency”.
“Her firmness, clarity of judgment, and humanity were crucial in activating the protocol, coordinating teams, and protecting us in a moment of utter chaos. Jesús is also alive thanks to her. Moreover, she did everything possible to preserve our privacy and prevent the spread of compromising images that could cause us great pain. Her respect and professionalism made us feel protected and cared for,” she wrote.
The play ‘Alfonso X, La última Cantiga’ at the Classical Theatre Festival of Alcántara recreates the “passionate and desperate expression of the last song of the Castilian monarch, Alfonso X El Sabio, in his farewell to life—a cry of relief and pain in his last breath for having failed to change history and the design of times”.
