I thought my daughter was choking on her curry. It was so much worse than that

Sighing with exhaustion, I flopped onto the sofa next to my daughter Maisie, 25, and grandson as she put plates on the table in front of us, piled high with curry and rice. It was September 2021 and we’d spent all day gardening. Now, with Myles, four, quietly watching a TV programme we could finally switch off and relax.

But as Maisie forked chicken tikka masala into her mouth, she suddenly fell back onto the sofa. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she let out a strange snorting sound. Fear cut through me. Was she choking?

‘Maisie!’ I shouted, turning and grabbing her head, but she was floppy and unresponsive. I was terrified, but knew I had to act fast and call 999.

I’d had first aid training in my job as a healthcare assistant so I tried to clear her airway but her mouth was clamped shut. I lifted her onto the floor as I spoke to the call handler then gabbled: ‘It’s my daughter. I think she is having a seizure.’

We later found out she had had a cardiac arrest but at the time I was clueless. All I could think about was making sure my girl survived.

I was told to check Maisie’s pulse. Nothing. She had also stopped breathing. ‘You’ll have to give chest compressions,’ the woman said. ‘I can’t do it to my own daughter,’ I cried.

It was one thing doing first aid on a plastic dummy, but another doing it on your child and knowing her life depended on it. But Maisie was lifeless, her eyes glazed. I was the only one who could save her.

I kneeled beside her, lifted up her black hoody and put the heel of my hand on her chest, the other hand on top and interlinked my fingers. Leaning over her, with my arms straight I used all my strength to push down hard, doing two chest compressions every second.

Myles was crying, asking: ‘Is my Mummy dying?’ I wanted to comfort him but Maisie was my priority. Time crawled as I pressed down on her chest again and again.

When the paramedics arrived – just five minutes later – I felt such relief. I bundled Myles into the bedroom, saying: ‘Mummy will be OK,’ over and over. Outside the door I heard a shrill beep, then the robotic voice of the defibrillator:

Analysing patient. Shock advised. My stomach knotted. They were restarting my daughter’s heart. This was serious.

It took more than an hour for paramedics to stabilise Maisie. They intubated her, putting in a ventilation tube so a machine could breathe for her. They also put her in an induced coma to protect her brain, then blue-lighted her to Bristol Royal Infirmary.

I called my sister to look after Myles, then drove to hospital. Doctors had given Maisie a brain scan, ruling out a bleed on the brain. They said she was stable but they had no idea if she had brain damage. They also said the chest compressions I’d given had been strong and they were hopeful it had allowed enough oxygen to get to her brain.

I later learned that brain tissue starts to die within three minutes after the heart stops, due to a lack of oxygen. Early Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (commonly known as CPR) can more than double a person’s chances of survival and can buy the time needed before paramedics arrive and provide care.

The next day, I was allowed to see Maisie. Pale, she was hooked up to a jumble of wires and covered in drips feeding medicines into her. Her body was wrapped in vinyl, with cool water pumped inside it, to keep her cool and protect her brain.

I asked doctors what had happened and they explained that Maisie had a cardiac arrest, the sudden loss of all heart activity due to an irregular heart rhythm. It causes a person to stop breathing and become unconscious and is something experienced by around 30,000 people in the UK every year outside of hospital settings.

Doctors explained that the cause was a leaky heart valve, which had caused her heart to beat irregularly. I was frustrated. Maisie had been diagnosed with it two years before but doctors had dismissed the need for any treatment. The day she had collapsed, she had complained of her heart beating fast.

Four days after Maisie collapsed, doctors brought her round. ‘It’s Mum,’ I said. ‘Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.’ When she did, relief coursed through me. Then she blinked and wiggled her toes. Once she was off the ventilator, she could speak.

She was going to be OK. I explained what had happened and the doctor said I had given her CPR. She was confused but, a few days later when I was helping her shower, she started crying and said: ‘Thank you for saving my life.’

I just hugged her tightly. I’d do it all again for her in a heartbeat. A couple of weeks later, doctors gave Maisie an ablation, zapping her heart with an electric current. They also fitted a kind of defibrillator called an S-ICD that would shock her if her heart went out of rhythm.

She was understandably upset about having a mobile-phone-sized box visible under her skin, but her heart condition meant she could have had another sudden cardiac arrest at any time. After Maisie came home, it took time for us all to deal with the trauma of what had happened.

We couldn’t believe a takeaway night had taken such a dramatic turn. Unsurprisingly, I haven’t had a takeaway curry since. We are both thankful that I had learned CPR and want to encourage everyone to learn it. The British Heart Foundation has a free online course called ReViVr. You just need 15 minutes, a cushion and your mobile phone to do it.

No one thinks they will have to use CPR on their friends or family but in fact 80% of cardiac arrests happen at home. I’m proof that knowing CPR could be the difference between life and death of the person you love.