Orla Thomas will never forget the day she was given the most unexpected and distressing news. Just 10 minutes after speaking to her father on the phone, who was laughing, joking and talking about taking his car to the garage, her mother called in a very upset state to say he had suddenly collapsed.
"It was so shocking that my life had changed drastically in that moment," recalled the 29-year-old, who discovered that her dad Ceri, a civil servant, had suffered a cardiac arrest at the age of 63. "We thought he was fit and healthy."
Orla rushed to collect her mother Andrée from work and on the way spotted the ambulance crews fighting to save Ceri's life with cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and defibrillation. She was with her father when he died.
