MUM’S SUDDEN DEATH TRAGEDY
AMUM-OF-THREE who was due to marry her partner of 14 years has died suddenly after collapsing while on holiday with her family. Emma Rees, 35, was walking across a field in Pembrokeshire when she suddenly collapsed and later died.
Emma and her family were on the fourth day of their holiday and had been staying at a small campsite in Solva.
Emma’s fiancé Ben Fitzgerald, 37, said: “We had gone to this little campsite near Solva and everything was normal. Then one morning Emma was just walking across the fields and dropped down.
“Some people near the campsite had attempted to give her CPR, with assistance from the emergency services on the phone.
“The ambulance came around six to seven minutes afterwards.”
Emma, a higher learning teaching assistant at Ysgol y Deri in Penarth, collapsed on August 20.
She was rushed to a hospital in Haverfordwest where medics fought to save her life for two hours.
Ben, from Roath, Cardiff, said Emma had an overactive thyroid for which she took medication, but was otherwise fit and healthy.
He spoke of his devastation and described Emma as his “soulmate”.
He said: “I was in total shock, as I am now still really. I was just shaking uncontrollably. I remember going to the toilet to vomit. We just kept the little ones away from what was going on when it happened. The other people in the campsite, these strangers, were amazing and took the little ones away to look after them.”
Just days earlier, while driving to West Wales, the couple were discussing their future together.
Ben said: “We had got engaged a few years back, but we never really took it any further than that.
“But actually when we went up there [Solva] in the car we did discuss the civil partnership and the plans.”
Ben said he broke the news of Emma’s death to their two children, Aneurin, seven, and Finn, five, at the hospital. Emma also had an 18-yearold son, Christopher, from a previous relationship.
Ben said: “They came to the hospital with some family and I just hugged them and told them. I told them everything. Our five-year-old has highend autism. His reaction was he can’t and does not want to process it. Our seven-year-old was just heartbroken.”
Ben and Emma had been together for around 14 years after meeting 15 years ago while working at Beechwood College in Barry.
Ben said: “Emma was just a magical, full-of-life person. She was a kind, generous, fiery and passionate person. She was a force to be reckoned with. She went out of her way to help people. Anyone who met her, particularly in a professional setting, would know that.
“She was outstanding in bringing out the best in people.”
Ben said Emma’s death is still unexplained until the result of various tests are returned in several weeks.
He said: “My children are amazingly strong and funny and they are helping me. We are all just clinging to each other now. It’s still really raw and it’s raw and difficult for the children, too. “There’s this hole in our lives now.” Lucy Morgan, who taught with Emma at Ysgol y Deri in Penarth, said everyone was devastated by the news of Emma’s death.
She said: “We were busy making plans at the end of term, Emma had just got a promotion and she had so many plans and had so much potential.
“She was an amazing person. We couldn’t believe it when we heard the news. It is devastating and we are all so shocked.
“Emma was such a bubbly person and so many people knew her. We are a very close-knit community and the staff, pupils and parents are all devastated.
“She was loved by those who knew her and gave so much to all. She had the biggest smile and brightened up everyone’s day.”
A fundraising page has been set up for Emma’s family with all proceeds to be donated to Ben and Emma’s children.
More than £1,400 has been raised so far and several people have left heartfelt tributes to Emma.
Responding to the tributes, Ben said: “It’s beautiful. I feel proud of her. That’s exactly the woman I knew and loved.”