A dancer has retold of the scary moment she was laughing and joking with colleagues - and then suddenly collapsed without warning after suffering a brain injury.
Mererid Rees, from Lampeter, was a performer at Global Village in Dubai for more than four years when she suffered an brain arteriovenous malformation (AVM) - which left the right side of her body immobile. A brain AVM is described as “a tangle of blood vessels in the brain bypasses normal brain tissue and directly diverts blood from the arteries to the veins”. AVMs are mostly found in the brain and spinal cord and most people are born with them, but they can form later in life. Some people show no symptoms until they experience bleeding, like Mererid, which resulted in a stroke.
The 27-year-old said: “I went to work and then one second I was laughing and then the second I collapsed and I said I couldn't feel any of my right side. My friend caught me - because she was right next to me - and I think she saved my life. She caught me before I hit the hard floor where I was working."
