Runner who went into anaphylactic shock eager to find Good Samaritans who saved him

An Edmonton man who went into anaphylactic shock during an evening run through the city's river valley is searching for the strangers who helped save him.

David Poretti credits a couple of fellow Edmontonians with saving his life when he suffered a severe allergic reaction that left him gasping for breath and fading in and out of consciousness.

He hopes the Good Samaritans come forward so he can thank them.

"I was so unlucky that day in the fact that I went without a phone and I didn't really have an EpiPen," Porretti said, adding that his luck changed when he encountered the bystanders. 

Poretti, 47, was a few minutes into a run through the McKinnon Ravine, near his home in central Edmonton, on Monday evening when he started to feel sick.

"I looked at my hands and my hands were just super red and swollen and I was like, 'Oh, that's weird,'" Poretti said.

"But [I thought] maybe I was overexerting myself a bit, so I started walking a little bit and then I could feel that it was starting to get really itchy."

Then his lips started to swell. He began to worry. 

Poretti had planned to only travel eight kilometres, a short distance for the avid runner, so he had left his wallet and phone at home. 

He started to walk to the trailhead near the Victoria Oval, feeling increasingly disoriented.

That's when a string of Good Samaritans entered the picture.

Poretti saw two cyclists and jumped in the middle of the path and waved his arms to get their attention.

"They stopped and I said, 'Listen, I think I'm going into anaphylactic shock. Do you have a phone I can use?'"

One of the cyclists lent Poretti a phone so he could dial 911, and stayed by his side throughout the incident.

The 911 operator told him to lay down on the ground as