Elizabeth Marks, Swimmer Who Returned Her Gold Medal to Prince Harry, Calls Him a 'Good Human Being'

The Invictus Games are over, but the extraordinary moments live on.

Elizabeth Marks, the gold-medal winning Invictus Games swimmer who became an Internet sensation when she poignantly returned her medal to Prince Harry, told PEOPLE how her big moment unfolded.

“I’d talked to Prince Harry previously about finding a way to get that medal to Papworth,” she says of the London Hospital that she credits with saving her life in 2014. “I thought the one that was presented to me by him would mean the most. I wanted to thank them for saving my life.”

But she downplays the hype around her Harry encounter on Wednesday and says she has avoided the press about it.

“I don’t pay attention to any of that,” says the 25-year-old Sergeant. “My driving force when I compete are the soldiers that I get to serve. The only reason I am here is to compete for my country and spend time with amazing people.”

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As for Harry, “I’m grateful to him for putting on this event and supporting the soldiers. He’s a very nice, honest, good human being who is here for one purpose: to show the world that soldiers can move forward from their injuries, and to support them. He uses his fame and his influence to support soldiers.”

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Just before the 2014 inaugural Invictus Games, Marks became sick with a serious lung condition.

She previously told reporters of her ordeal: “I landed in London and became very ill very rapidly, I was in hospital in London and went into respiratory distress syndrome, they shipped a team down from Papworth who put me on to ECMO [extracorporeal membrane oxygenation] life support and that ultimately saved my life.”

Dr. Roger Hall, Medical Director at Papworth Hospital, told PEOPLE in a statement, “The team here at Papworth is extremely proud to hear that Elizabeth has asked to donate her medal to Papworth, this is extremely generous and unexpected. Our pioneering and innovating ethos allows us to offer some of the U.K. s most advanced treatment for heart and lung disease and this news will mean a lot to all the staff at Papworth who work tirelessly to provide the very best care possible to our patients.”