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Woman from Caernarfon survives after being brought back to life 114 times
Apr 2 2010 By Richard Down, Daily Post
Ann Mintram with the equipment she uses at home to treat her heart condition
Ann Mintram with the equipment she uses at home to treat her heart condition
A WOMAN was brought back from the dead 114 times in thirty hours after she collapsed while watching TV.
Ann Mintram went through “total hell” as doctors battled to save her life with electric shocks when her heart stopped more than 100 times in Ysbyty Gwynedd.
The 55-year-old from Waunfawr near Caernarfon, told how she “died” repeatedly at Ysbyty Gwynedd after she was struck by Sudden Adult Death Syndrome.
She was later transferred to a specialist heart unit at Liverpool’s Broadgreen hospital where she “flatlined” another 10 times.
Speaking for the first time of her horrific ordeal, Ann told how her chest was burned because medics had used a defibrilator so many times.
Each time she came around she feared she’d not pull through, but doctors turned her on to her stomach to keep shocking her on her back instead, and eventually stabilised her.
Last night as the anniversary of the attack approached, Ann thanked the medics who she says worked a “miracle”.
She has now been fitted with a mini-defibrilator next to her heart, but has been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and still has night time panics because of her condition.
She told the Daily Post how she collapsed while sitting with her husband David last April: “I had been feeling funny and slightly giddy all day and put it down to age.
“But I was watching TV and apparently David turned to me and noticed I’d gone unconscious.”
She was rushed to Ysbyty Gwynedd for overnight observation. But the next day as she dressed to go home, on Good Friday, her heart stopped.
She said: “My husband grabbed me as I fell and screamed for a nurse.
“The next thing I knew a nurse was on my chest doing ‘CPR’ heart massage.”
Although she was just 30 yards from the intensive cardiac unit medics couldn’t get her stable enough to move her and kept having to hit her with electric shocks from a defibrilator.
Terrified daughter Helen Roberts and her sister Loretta and brother Colin were called to the hospital.
In a radical break with tradition they were allowed to remain in the room throughout Ann’s ordeal.
Helen said: “I remember asking the consultant after shock number 18 ‘whats the plan?’ and being mortified by the answer ‘this is the plan, there’s nothing more we can do’.
“She was in so much pain, so frightened and her screams run through me even now, I can hear them so clearly a year on.”
Ann said: “No one expected me to get through. I was scared and felt like giving up as my body couldn’t cope with the shocks any more.
“I’d had that many defibrilations that my chest was burned and they had to turn me over and do it on my back.
“But I’ve got six grandchildren and a family so I thought ‘blow it, I’m going to fight’.
After more than 20 hours, she was stable enough to be transferred to specialist heart hospital in Broadgreen Liverpool.
Another series of shocks were administered before medics finally stabilised her.
She now staves off further attacks with heavy duty medicine and should that fail, she’s had a defibrilator surgically installed next to her heart.
Fortunately she’s not had a single incident in the last 12 months.
But now she’s suffering the delayed emotional impact of her Easter nightmare. She can no longer sleep without the light on because of Post Traumatic Stress.
She said: “If I wake in complete darkness, I get very frightened and think it’s all happening again.
“But you’ve just got to go on.”
“But I was watching TV and apparently David turned to me and noticed I’d gone unconscious.”
Ann's story is a 'unique case' says doctor who led the fight for her life
