Daughter saves mother from death by detecting abnormal snoring

Melissa Doyle, of Lisburn, Northern Ireland, fell asleep in her mother’s bed. Early in the morning, Melissa’s mother, Clare, 43, began to make strange snoring sounds, her face pale.

Melissa called the emergency line and they gave her instructions on what to do because the nearest ambulance took 40 minutes to get there.

Luckily, the 14-year-old girl had just learned CPR at school and immediately knew she needed to act. She guessed her mother had suffered a cardiac arrest.

“If Melissa didn’t know what to do in the morning when my heart stopped, I’d be dead,” Clare said.

“Melissa’s CPR maintained oxygen to my brain and kept me from brain damage or worse, death, while we waited for help.”

Ms Clare was then taken to the emergency room of the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast. Three days later, the patient is still in a coma, the chances of survival are slim.

On Monday morning, the patient awoke: “I woke up feeling like I had a really good night’s sleep all weekend.”

“I didn’t know what had happened, so I was shocked to find myself on the hospital bed. The first thing I said was: Where’s my makeup bag and who’s looking after the dog?”

Doctors don’t know what caused Clare’s heart to stop. Currently, the patient has a defibrillator to help regulate the heart rate.

Now, Clare is also learning CPR and volunteering for the community.

“When Melissa said she learned CPR at school, I was happy because if children are taught that skill from a young age, they can confidently apply it when they grow up,” Clare said.

The steps to perform CPR are very simple and you can learn in 15 minutes.

Cardiac arrest is not the same as a heart attack

That’s when your heart stops beating suddenly and you can die if you don’t get medical help within minutes. Every year in the UK, 100,000 people die from cardiac arrest.

In most cases, sudden cardiac arrest occurs without any warning. At this point, a person will lose consciousness, become unresponsive, unable to breathe.

Meanwhile, a heart attack is where blood flow to the heart is partially blocked with common signs including pain in the chest and arms, nausea, sweating, fatigue, and sudden dizziness.

An Yen (According to The Sun)