A 26-minute audio clip of an emergency hotline operator informing a panicked woman how to give her husband first aid went viral on Chinese microblog service Sina Weibo on Wednesday.

The incident happened during the National Day holiday in Wuhan, Hubei province, when the 43-year-old husband, surnamed Peng, collapsed at home.

His wife, who called the local emergency center, can be heard to repeat the phrase "please do not hang up, I am so scared" several times in the recording.

The hotline operator, 33-year-old Liu Qing, told the woman how to perform chest compression on her husband while she waited for an ambulance to arrive.

After three days in hospital, Peng recovered and his life is not longer in danger.

The audio clip was first released by Yangtze River Daily on Saturday via its WeChat account, but it did not start to go viral until Wednesday.

By Thursday morning, the audio clip had been reposted by more than 40 media outlets and read by some 2 million netizens, many of whom said it "deeply moved" them.

"Emergency call operators given more than just technical advice, they also provide psychological comfort," said Liu, the hotline operator, adding that the call was the longest in her nine-year career.

Chen Manli, director of the cardiovascular department at the hospital where Peng was treated, said: "The survival rate for sudden cardiac arrest outside hospital is below 1 percent. The wife played a vital role by performing chest compression within what we call the 'golden four minutes'."