A great-grandmother has thanked a nurse for saving her life and said without help she would not be alive.

Iris Merry, a great-greatmother of four from Romford, went into cardiac arrest on a street in the outer London town in December 2024.

The Romford resident, who has since gone through a long recovery, including weeks at Queen's Hospital and St Bart's in the City of London, thanked NHS nurse Anna Page.

Iris was saved by nurse Anna, a GP who happened to be passing by, as well as strangers, an incident recounted by the Romford great-grandmother.

“I’d gone to have a haircut, feeling fine, then was heading back to my car when I started feeling giddy," Iris said.

"Then bang, I was smack down on the pavement and don’t remember anymore until I heard a faint screaming, getting louder, and realised it was me."

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Iris added that she had briefly woken up when paramedics arrived and then was put in intensive care.

"It didn’t hit me what had happened until I got home and I was traumatised by it," she said.

The great-grandmother said she feels lucky it happened in a public place and there was a nurse nearby.

"I’ve since heard a very low percentage of people who have a cardiac arrest out of hospital survive," she added. "I had the right people, in the right place to help.”

Anna, director of nursing for workforce at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust (BHRUT), said she was Christmas shopping with her husband in Romford when she saw Iris.

She took over treatment from passersby and began CPR immediately, despite never having done it on the street before.

"I’ve never done it on a busy street before," Anna, who had not done CPR in years, said. "Luckily, I’d completed my mandatory basic life support training just a month before," she added.

Anna took the opportunity to thank people who intervened by calling an ambulance before she arrived and fetched two defibrillators, but encouraged everyone to get basic life support training.

Iris reiterated Anna's message and added: “I can’t thank everyone enough for everything they did for me, they saved my life.”