A GWENT mum-of-three was yesterday reunited with the ambulance crew who saved her life when her heart stopped.

The crew had to re-start the heart of Trinant woman Samantha Lyons, 36, who collapsed with a heart attack after suffering what she thought was indigestion.

Ms Lyons woke in the early hours of the morning with pain between her shoulders.

Although she thought it was just indigestion, her partner Wayne Jenkins was worried and phoned for an ambulance when the pain got worse.

Ms Lyons suffered a heart attack in the back of the ambulance and lost consciousness.

Paramedic Martin Cross and ambulance technician Matt Lane used a defibrillator to restart her heart and also gave her an injection to clear the clot which caused the heart attack.

Ms Lyons, who had no previous history of heart problems, was taken to the Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport, where she spent four days.

She was then transferred to the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, to have treatment to widen the arteries around her heart.

Ms Lyons, who has three children, Adam, 18, Sadie, 17,and Jamie, nine, said: "I wouldn't be here now if it wasn't for the ambulance crew and I will never forget what they did for me. I'm slowly improving my fitness, but they have told me to take my time and build up slowly."

She said she remembered getting into the ambulance and then saw an old man in a white tuxedo handing her a bouquet of yellow flowers.

She said: "I'm sure the ambulance crew thought I was simple and my partner, Wayne, looked at me as if I was completely daft. However, it was so vivid. This old man gave me the flowers and told me I had to go back. It was weird."

The family wrote thank you cards to the crew and also took them some biscuits and a bottle of wine.

Nine-year-old Jamie wrote of the November 20 incident: "Thank you for saving our mam and to us you mean the world."

Mr Jenkins's card said: "We can't thank you enough. You're worth your weight in gold. We're so glad there are people like you about."

EDITORIAL COMMENT: We support ambulance staff

READERS will be aware of the stories we have published in recent days on the crisis in the ambulance service and the long delays experienced by patients needing to get to hospital.

Most of our readers understand why we have published these stories.

But some believe that we have launched a direct attack on the front-line paramedics.

Nothing could be farther from the truth and we are baffled as to how anybody could read our stories and think we are trying to attack the very staff who are trying to save lives.

Our concern is with the way the Welsh Ambulance Service and the NHS hospitals are run and we have tried to make this clear on a number of occasions.

We said many years ago that there would be problems if Wales got one ambulance service and sadly we have been proved right.

Our beef is not with those men and women on the ground who are doing their very best to help people - our argument is with the management of the service who have still to tell us what they are doing to resolve these problems.

One only has to look at our story today on the Trinant woman who suffered a heart attack and is thanking the paramedics who saved her to see what a wonderful job they are doing in extremely trying circumstances.