‘My fiance died of a heart attack weeks before our wedding – our unborn baby is his last gift to me’
by John Scheerhout · Manchester Evening NewsA pregnant mother-of-one whose fiance died suddenly of a heart attack on the way home from the shop said her unborn baby is “like a last gift” from her late partner.
Caroline Ramsay, 40, said she and her fiance, Jason Horsfall, 41, were less than a month from getting married when he started complaining of heartburn on the morning of October 10. She suggested he take some Gaviscon and paracetamol but when Jason’s discomfort continued he told his partner of six years he would go across the street to a Morrisons petrol station to buy some aspirin, saying “this heartburn is killing me”.
But on the way home he collapsed in the road. Emergency services were called while members of the public performed CPR, Caroline said, but Jason died later that afternoon in an ambulance.
On October 14, four days after Jason’s death, Caroline, from Nottinghamshire, discovered she was pregnant with his child, and now seven weeks along, she says that while she is “reliving” his death “every day”, she feels comforted with the fact “part of him is growing inside of me”.
Caroline said she cancelled their wedding which was due to take place on November 5 at a registration office in Nottingham and has launched an online fundraising page to help with the fees for Jason’s funeral and the everyday costs of looking after their 20-month-old daughter, Paignton.
“I’m doing each day hour by hour, I feel like a zombie,” Caroline told PA Real Life. “But, in a way, I actually feel comforted and lucky that I’ve got a baby because it’s like a last gift from Jason. It’s nice to know I’ve got a part of him growing inside of me, it’s very comforting.”
Caroline said she and Jason met in an Asda supermarket “of all places” in 2018.
“Jason said he had seen me in the area months and months before,” she said. “One day, I noticed him in Asda, sort of walking behind me, doing his shopping and we said hello. He then messaged me out of the blue on social media and it started from there – in Asda of all places.”
She said they were engaged in December 2020 and had set their wedding date for November 5. “He was amazing, he couldn’t do enough for me,” Caroline said.
On the morning of October 10, Caroline recalled Jason was suffering with some discomfort in his chest.
“He woke up like any other morning, totally fine, but he said he had a bit of heartburn – he’s suffered with it before,” Caroline said.
She said she advised him to take some Gaviscon and paracetamol, but it was not having the desired effect.
“He made himself some breakfast but the pain came back again and he said, ‘this heartburn is killing me’,” Caroline said.
She said she suggested they call an ambulance but Jason declined, saying instead he would go to the Morrisons petrol station located opposite their two-bedroom flat to purchase some aspirin from the shop.
On the way back home, Caroline said Jason “collapsed” in the road while having a heart attack – prompting a member of the public to start performing CPR.
Emergency services, including paramedics in solo response cars, two crewed ambulances and an air ambulance were dispatched to the scene, according to the East Midlands Ambulance Service, which alerted Caroline to the incident as she said her house is “literally a second away” from the petrol station.
“I had this gut-wrenching feeling, I ran outside and the first thing I saw was Jason’s trainers,” Caroline said. I screamed at the top of my lungs, ran over to him and was trying to comfort him. There were quite a lot of public around, they were really helpful and doing CPR on Jason.
“The ambulance crew then took over and they put him in the back (of the ambulance) – they told me to wait in the house because I was distraught and my house is literally a second away.”
Caroline said paramedics were able to revive Jason twice but his heart continued to fail.
She said she was told by paramedics the situation was not looking positive after Jason was being treated in the ambulance for about 48 minutes.
“I went to the back of the ambulance and held his hand the whole way through while they put a scan on his heart to see if there was any activity,” she said.
“I asked if there was any way back from this but there was a very slim chance – I said if there was no way back, we need to turn the machines off and (the ambulance crew) agreed. They said that if we bring him back, his heart is going to keep failing.”
Caroline said she sat with Jason, “held his hand” and “kissed his forehead”.
“They took the machines off him and took the tube out his mouth... I was with him until he took his last breath,” she said.
Caroline said Jason was pronounced dead at 4.35pm and she waited with him for coroner staff to arrive to take his body to the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham.
“I’m reliving it every day,” she said. "I can’t go into our bedroom, I start to get panicky when I go near it – that’s the last place he was.”
Caroline said she is now waiting for a post-mortem examination to be concluded to establish Jason’s cause of death after an initial autopsy could not determine what caused the heart attack.
She said she also discovered on October 14 she is now seven weeks pregnant with Jason’s baby.
“I was feeling a bit unwell so I thought I’d take a test and it came back positive,” she said. "I felt absolutely numb but then it felt like a miracle. When I feel really down and I can’t stop crying, I just think that I’ve got a part of him growing inside of me.”
To help their daughter Paignton understand the loss, Caroline told her Jason is now “a star in the sky”.
“There’s loads of photos around the flat of all of us together and she’ll point going, ‘dada’,” she added.
Caroline said she has since had to cancel the pair’s wedding plans as they were due to tie the knot on November 5.
“I’ve had to cancel the notice of marriage and things like the flowers – but I’m not too worried about them to be honest,” she said.
She has also set up an online fundraising page, which has raised more than £1,500, to help with the fees for Jason’s funeral and the everyday costs of looking after their daughter.
“I’m thankful and overwhelmed for people’s generosity and support,” she said.