Husband's kiss woke 'sleeping beauty wife' in coma after heart attack

After two weeks sitting by his wife's bedside hoping she would wake from a coma, Andrew Ray was at his wits' end.



Doctors had told him Emma could become a real-life sleeping beauty when she failed to regain consciousness after a heart attack.



The distraught father of two played her tapes of their baby son crying and their daughter shouting 'wake up Mummy!'.



Finally, in desperation, he leant over her hospital bed and pleaded: 'Emma, if you can hear me, please just give me a kiss.'



Kiss of life: Andrew woke his 'sleeping beauty' wife Emma from her coma with a kiss

'What happened next was beyond my wildest dreams,' he said. 'She turned her head towards mine, puckered up her lips and gave me a little kiss.



'I couldn't believe it. My heart felt like it was going to leap from my chest - it suddenly felt like a huge weight had been lifted.'



The kiss was witnessed by doctors who were astonished by the 34-year-old's sudden response.



Mrs Ray had suffered the heart attack just ten days after giving birth to her son.



Her horrified husband had to give her mouth-to-mouth after she collapsed while they were out shopping. She was taken to hospital where doctors were able to restart her heart but warned she could remain in a coma indefinitely.



Mr Ray said a doctor told him: 'She could wake up the following day, she could wake up in a month, or you may be left with a sleeping beauty.'



The IT consultant from Telford, Shropshire, tried to rouse his wife by playing recordings of their baby son Alexander and toddler Ella.



He said: 'I would play Emma the sounds of Alexander crying and gurgling, Ella singing and shouting "Wake up Mummy!".



'I even played her recordings of the songs we had danced to during our wedding.



'I would speak softly to her, clasp her hand, pinch her fingers, all the time telling her I loved her or begging her to wake up. By the time I asked her to kiss me I was approaching my wits' end.'



The happy couple embrace on their wedding day in 2000

However, the kiss was just the start of an agonising battle for Mrs Ray, who continued to drift in and out of consciousness.



Her brain had been starved of oxygen when her heart stopped beating and the resulting injury left her with short-term memory loss.



Mrs Ray was transferred from the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital to a specialist brain injury rehabilitation unit at the Hayward Hospital in Stoke-on-Trent.



She was eventually allowed home but now - almost two years later - the former IT consultant still needs ongoing rehabilitation for the brain damage she suffered.



Doctors believe her heart attack may have been caused by a blood clot after her son Alexander, now two, was delivered by Caesarean section.



She had been to see a GP the night before her cardiac arrest, complaining of palpitations, but was told it was probably down to a minor infection.



Mrs Ray said: 'The recovery is awful because I have so little memory.



'I would wish above all else to be well, to walk unaided and to have my memory back.



'I would love to remember what I've done each day. Andrew helps me to do everything. Without him I don't know how I'd cope.'



Mr Ray said he was just grateful his wife had survived. He said: 'She can walk quite well holding hands now, and at least our kids still have a mother and I still have a wife.'

