'Perfectly fit' Michelle, 39, assumed she'd been struck by a bout of heartburn. Two hours later she was dead. Thousands of women have the same hidden ticking time bomb – but you CAN stop it striking

Published: 12:03 BST, 13 August 2026 | Updated: 16:50 BST, 13 August 2026

One afternoon in October 2024, 39-year-old Michelle Roberts felt the usual wave of post-lunch exhaustion that comes with looking after her five young children.

But Michelle, from Hertfordshire, was irritated by another problem, too. A bout of particularly severe heartburn that left her feeling nauseous.

She called her husband Ben, 43, an IT manager, who was on his way home from work, to tell him she was feeling unwell and needed to lie-down.

Alarmed at how ill she sounded, Ben urged Michelle to call 999.

'She was hesitant because she didn't want to bother them,' says Ben. 'Now I wish we had.'

By the time Ben had returned, Michelle was in bed and had called 111 – the NHS non-emergency number. After some back-and-forth, the operator decided to send an ambulance.

Ben was instructed to wait for the ambulance downstairs – so he decided to make dinner for the children at the same time.

'Neither of us knew how serious the situation was,' he says.

When Michelle felt a burning sensation in her throat and a wave of fatigue, she initially she thought she was suffering from food poisoning 

But within hours she was slumped over, unconscious and barely breathing 

'As I was walking out the door she said: "Ben, I'm scared." 

'I assured her she would be fine because an ambulance was coming. That was the last thing she said to me.'

When Ben returned upstairs half an hour later to check on her, with no ambulance in sight, he found her slumped over and not breathing.

He immediately began CPR while frantically calling 999 to find out when the ambulance would arrive.

Source: Read the original article on www.dailymail.com