'Miracle' of woman brought back from the dead 114 TIMES in 30 hours

A woman has praised 'miracle' doctors after she was brought back from the dead 114 times in thirty hours as her heart repeatedly stopped.

Ann Mintram said she went through 'total hell' as medics battled to save her life with electric shocks.

The 55-year-old ended up with scorch marks on her body from the shocks as doctors at two hospitals repeatedly resuscitated her lifeless body for more than a day and a night.

'Miracle': Ann Mintram's heart stopped 114 times over 30 hours but doctors never gave up. A year on she keeps a mini-defibrillator close by her in case of relapse

A year on from her ordeal she has thanked the dedicated medical teams who refused to give up on her.

Mrs Mintram, from Waunfawr near Caernarfon in North Wales, was struck down by Sudden Adult Death Syndrome - in which the heart stops for no known reason - after a collapse at home while watching television.



She 'died' and was revived more than 100 times at the Ysbyty Gwynedd clinic in Bangor.



Later she was transferred to a specialist heart unit at Liverpool's Broadgreen Hospital where she 'flatlined' another 10 times.

Speaking for the first time of being brought back from the dead, Ann told how her chest was burned because medics had used a defibrilator so many times.

Each time she came round she feared she would not pull through, but doctors turned her on her stomach to keep shocking her heart through her back instead, and eventually her condition stabilised.



She had passed out while sitting with her husband David last April. 'I had been feeling funny and slightly giddy all day and put it down to age,' she said.



'But I was watching TV and apparently David turned to me and noticed I'd gone unconscious.'

She was admitted to hospital overnight for observation but as she was getting dressed to leave the next day, 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 could not 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 and, unusually, 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.'



Mrs Mintram 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 the specialist heart hospital in Broadgreen, Liverpool.



Another series of shocks were administered before medics finally stabilised her.

She has now been fitted with a mini-defibrilator next to her heart and controls her condition with heavy medication.

She has had no relapse in the last 12 months but has been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and still has night time panics because of her condition.

She says she can no longer sleep without the light on, adding: '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.'



