Paul Gascoigne returned from the dead after doctors reset his heart in rehab

As Gazza "died on the operating table", the doctors put an injection into the ex-attacking midfielder's heart, and they say it kept him alive.

The star - who was capped 57 times - told The Mirror: "Looking back at what happened in Arizona, when I died on the operating table, that was really scary.

"The doctors said they were able to get me back. I came around, and I was doped up to f***. I eventually got on the phone to my family and said, 'It is OK, I am through it, I have recovered.'"

Gazza - who admits his alcohol addiction is the "lowest point" in his life - believes he would have been dead if he had not gone to that clinic in the southwestern region of North America.

He admitted: "I tell you what, if I had gone to any other rehab, I think that I would have been dead. I could not remember much of it afterwards.

"When I relapse, I go cold turkey because I want to feel the pain.

"In Arizona, it did scare me, but I did not feel the effects because I was drugged up.

"I stayed for an extra two weeks. I still go back sometimes, even when I am fine, just to remind myself of how bad it was.

"They told me that I had died. I was still wobbly on the drugs.

"I was sedated and in a coma for 18 days, and I came around, and I did not know what day it was."

While Gazza - who has written a memoir called Eight, the number on his shirt for Tottenham Hotspur and Rangers F.C. - was in an induced coma, false claims of his demise were widespread.

And when he returned to Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, North East England, later in 2013, the ex-sportsman caused one woman - who believed he was dead - to think she had seen a ghost.

Gazza - who now lives on the south coast of England - recalled: "I always remember coming back to Newcastle and seeing a woman in the street.

"She stopped and stared at me, she almost fainted. She said, 'I thought you were dead.' I said: 'Of course I am not f****** dead.

"I later found out that people were receiving text messages in stadiums. They were saying that I was dead.

"So the woman looked like she had seen a ghost."