WHY I’LL NEVER WALK DOWN TOXIC OXFORD STREET AGAIN

JEMMA Rix thought she had grown out of her asthma, until she woke up one night unable to breathe.

The 28-year-old charity worker, above, who lives in London, says: ‘i grew up in the Norfolk countryside. i’d had very mild asthma and foolishly thought it had gone completely.

‘After i moved to London i started to feel breathless and wheezy but i didn’t realise it was asthma.’

instead she thought she was simply run down.

When Jemma woke unable to breathe four years ago, she was terrified.

The Children in Need fundraiser was rushed by ambulance to Homerton Hospital in East London.

She was given steroid drugs to stabilise her breathing and monitored for eight hours.

Now she has regular check-ups with her doctor and uses a ‘preventer’ inhaler every day to protect her lungs.

She also checks air pollution levels online. ‘if it’s really bad, i’d never go into busy areas such as Oxford Street,’ she says.