At 3:40pm on the 11th August 2026 I was witness to a traumatic event. L’s life on this Earth came to an end. Whilst leaving Riverside, after being breathless in the morning and securing the miracle of a Doctors appointment the same day, while walking L down to the car she started to feel breathless again then sick before ultimately suffering a heart attack. At the time, we didn’t know what exactly it was. She was breathless so we got her a chair to rest on, then a few minutes later she slumped to the floor and she was gone. I was there, together with [I]and thankfully [M] was there too. It’s all still a little too raw to talk about more in great detail, but the element we have been able to find some comfort within is that she was in a place she loved with people who loved her greatly. She was not alone and she was not with strangers.
I will return to thoughts and feelings at a later point when I have had more time to process them. Logistics however… Before I got to call an ambulance I had found out that someone was on the phone to them already. They were told on the phone that it would be 40 minutes for an ambulance to get there. I recall thinking “Jesus Christ.. 40 minutes.. if you were having a heart attack, you’d have no chance”… Cruelly, unknown to me at the time, that is exactly what was happening. A few minutes later we requested another call to 999 to update them of the circumstances and the condition of Linda. Things were worsening. No further update on the estimated time of arrival, but at this time I chose to go and stand in the road to flag down the ambulance. When it arrived (in what seemed like a few minutes later, quicker than 40 minutes), the driver asked if he could reverse in to the car park.. I said yes of course.. I felt like it was a strange thing to ask, but I figure it results in a quicker get away if required. When they were arriving I did think to myself they are taking their time, which was the point at which there were shouts and calls from inside to expedite their arrival.. Communicating this to them did not make them move any faster.
At this time I was standing at the bottom of the inner ramp and Irene was at the top. I was signalling to people at the top to move [I] inside and around the corner, I did not want her to witness what was about to happen. The ambulance people connected [L] up to a machine and this was the first time it dawned on me that I was looking at a pulse less line. Fuck. Next a rapid response car with two Paramedics arrived and one of the Ambulance men asked me to shout to them to get Lukas. I passed on the message and one of the Paramedics ran back to grab it. Lukas of course is a machine that can be attached to a patient to automatically pump their chest. Meanwhile the student Paramedic thanked me for passing on the message and then was asked to start CPR while awaiting Lukas. Thankfully the other Paramedic arrived quickly with Lukas in hand. It was setup and the next time I looked it was pumping [L’s] chest. I noticed that there was still no electrical activity at all.
At this point I started to break down and I had to step away. I was again sent to the car park, this time to await the arrival of relatives. I spoke to God. The God that I was raised to believe in. The God that I’d found very little to believe in following the passing of my Mother in 2019. I asked for a miracle. He delivered nothing but shock, trauma and sadness.
The next time I saw, [L] was on a stretcher, attached to Lukas and Defib pads and was being wheeled down the ramp and in to the back of the Ambulance. When she was rolled passed, I saw her eyes were open. The Ambulance people said they would need a few minutes to continue to work on her before allowing people to see here before heading off to hospital. However I now believe this is just something they said to make us feel better. I fully believe she had been down from when she slumped to the floor. But, giving them their dues, the Ambulance and Paramedics did work hard on her while at Riverside, and said they continued to do so in on the journey to the hospital.
Family left to go to meet the Ambulance at the hospital, and the expectation was that we would go home. I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t ready or able to drive at that point. I was in shock and frankly traumatised at what I saw. That’s not an image I am going to be able to shake for a while. I see it when I close my eyes. I see it when I blink! A short while later, I could still feel the expectation to ‘just get on with it’ and so we went home. I am honestly not sure that any thought was given to the practicalities of getting home, so I just went through the motions, relying upon adrenaline to get us home. There we sat for what felt like a lifetime, but was only really a few minutes after we got back, when we received the phone call we were dreading, with those words… “She’s gone”.
The almost two weeks that have followed that day have been some of the hardest two weeks I’ve ever experienced. This was different to losing Mum. This was so unexpected that its left a lot of shock. Sheer disbelief that it happened. It’s not denial.. it’s too raw for that yet. We have been visited then by family and friends what has seemed like every single day since. We are shattered and knackered, in more ways than one. Sheer disbelief. I have in that time been to see the Doctor.. well for a review at least. My blood sugars are good, my cholesterol is good and my weight is stable and has been for a year. There are no other issues there seemingly, not physically anyway… except for the fact that my BP was 150/120! If I was experiencing shortness of breath and chest pain too then they would consider me at risk for a heart attack myself. I have to have a followup next week to see if anything has changed with the BP. – I would have thought it was fairly obvious as to why my BP was so high. Anyway, I was offered for a referral to be done on my behalf to Bereavement Counselling and for a Doctor to call me the same day. The Doctors call never seemed to come through, and I’ve no idea what’s happening with the counselling.. But at this moment in time.. I am still in a stage of What the Fuck just happened?!
“L” 1949 – 2026 – Rest in Peace. I am so so sad that you’ve gone. So many plans.
