Tech worker Max had felt a burning sensation in his chest while paddling. But he did not realise anything was wrong until he began to feel exhausted after leaving the water.
Andi, of Palo Alto, California, saw Max fall to the floor on Capitola Beach in his home town of Santa Cruz.
When she could not find his pulse the mum-of-two began CPR.
Within seven minutes an ambulance arrived, took Max off the beach on a stretcher and revived him using a defibrillator.
Doctors said he had suffered a heart attack and that he had a number of blockages of his coronary artery.
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The next day Max had bypass surgery and ten months later is back to full health – and still with Andi.
Andi said: “We had been friends for a while and I was really interested in spending some more time together.
“He suggested we get up really early that Saturday and go surfing. We had such a wonderful time. We got out of the water and he suddenly fell.
“He wasn’t responding and he didn’t have a pulse. I started CPR and called for help. The ambulance got there so quick – those guys are amazing.
“When they took him away I didn’t know if he was going to live.”
Max said: “It was surreal. I woke up in the ambulance and this guy leaning over me asked if I knew what had happened. I said ‘I think I’ve had a heart attack – how embarrassing’.”
He recalled: “I had finally told this woman I really liked that I had a crush on her and she had said it back.
“Who wants to date someone who just had a heart attack?” Andi said she became tearful when she got a call from Max that afternoon to apologize to her.
She said: “I was so relieved. I had just met this amazing person and now he could be gone.”
Max’s collapse was captured on camera by Los Angeles composer Alexander Baker, 58, who had been filming a time-lapse video of seagulls. Max said he hopes the video will encourage others to learn CPR.