A woman who "died and came back to life" had to be proposed to seven times by her boyfriend - because she kept forgetting she'd already said yes. Kirsty Bortoft, 49, was working from home one Friday in January 2021 when she had a sudden cardiac arrest.
Her partner, Stu Clark, 47, returned home from his job as a a managing director of a car dealership to find her lifeless body on the sofa. Kirsty, a mind coach and meditation teacher, from Bridlington, East Yorkshire, said: "I don't remember much but Stu was told to prepare for the worst. It was a Friday, and I was working from home because it was lockdown.
"The last time I was seen on WhatsApp was 4.49pm and Stu walked in at 5.29pm. I was sat on the sofa with my eyes open - not breathing. He didn't think I was going to make it - I had turned a weird dark red colour and had hexagon shapes all over my skin."
He immediately performed CPR and called the emergency services, who arrived in under six minutes. After 40 minutes of CPR, paramedics finally found Kirsty's heartbeat and could then use a defibrillator to regulate it before rushing her to Scarborough Hospital, 30 minutes away.
Although he was told by medics to expect the worst after Kirsty's heart stopped for up to 40 minutes, Stu said he had a "premonition" that she would "come back" two days later. He told her to return so he could marry her.
Despite being given just a six per cent chance of survival, two days later Kirsty was brought out of her coma. Doctors had no idea what the prognosis would be and feared she could be brain dead.
She said: "I came out and had no idea what was going on, so I freaked out, I started pulling all the tubes out of me, so they put me back under." According to Kirsty, doctors then decided to see if her body would cope unhooked to the machines - and miraculously it did.
Kirsty said: "I came back and was conscious, but I wasn't completely present for three days - I think because of all the drugs. Stu proposed to me seven times but I kept forgetting - finally I remembered proposal number seven.
"It brought a lot of love and joy to the whole ward. Stu could only see me through a window because of Covid and had to FaceTime doctors to see what had happened."
Kirsty says she owes the fact she is alive today to a stranger who helped one of Stu's clients who had broken down. She said: "Stu was called out to go and help someone whose car had broken down but he then got a call to say a stranger had already helped, so he didn't have to go.
"I wouldn't be here today (without that stranger) because he wouldn't have found me. It's like it all lines up and I got sent back for a reason."
Doctors were baffled as to what had happened to Kirsty and struggled to pinpoint why she "died". Kirsty had a defibrillator fitted - a small device that regulates the heart's rhythm - in case her heart were to stop again.
Kirsty underwent tests - including a lung x-ray - to try and establish what happened to her. "The radiographer had seen me before just before I was put into a coma and couldn't believe it was me," she said.
"There was water and scarring in my lungs and it had completely gone. I kept telling the doctors I know I might have just died but I'm really fit and healthy, and I meditated - there was a white golden light healing me.
"I have no memory from those three days but when I came back into my body, I had an undoubtable knowing I had to continue my life from total gratitude, and I needed to share my story with the world."
