As the champagne corks popped and the wedding guests cheered, chief bridesmaid Ashlee Hayward felt a strange ache in her heart. For a moment, the pretty 23-year-old wondered if it was just the emotion of her sister Jenna’s special day. The beach ceremony in Tairua had been beautiful and the reception was turning out to be a joyful occasion for Jenna and her new husband, Kiwi cricketer Brent Arnel.

But as she watched the smiling couple cut their cake, Ashlee realised the intense pain wasn’t overwhelming happiness – it. was a medical emergency. “I couldn’t breathe and felt a stabbing sensation in my chest,” she recalls. “Even though I was young and fit and it didn’t make sense, I felt like I was having a heart attack.”

She managed to alert her parents and quietly left the reception with them, not wanting to upset the celebrations. An ambulance was called and Ashlee was taken to hospital where doctors confirmed that her life was hanging in the balance after a heart attack.

But they had no idea why this young, healthy woman, who works for Thames Coromandel District Council, had suffered such a devastating health crisis. When the worrying news was broken to Jenna (25), she immediately wanted to leave her own wedding to be with her gravely ill sister.

“She was in tears and frantic with concern,” says Ashlee. “Her guests found her in the kitchen crying and thought she was overwhelmed with emotion about being a bride. But really, she was worried sick about me!”

“All night, when she and Brent should have been spending a romantic evening together, Jenna just sat by the phone, waiting for news.” When doctors discovered the cause of the attack, it was completely unexpected. Ashlee had a tumour on her heart the size of a cricket ball, which had suddenly burst. Medical experts had no idea how long the tumour had been there, but when they looked back at some x-rays taken for a health check in 2000, they saw that the tumour had been present. However, it was so small, it hadn’t been picked up.

If she hadn’t suffered the attack of pain at the wedding and received such prompt medical treatment, Ashlee could have dropped dead at any time. The huge tumour had to be removed immediately, and Ashlee’s family was told she faced a high chance of dying during the operation.

“There were a lot of risks involved in the surgery, the worst being that I could die, which was devastating for the whole family to hear,” she says. “That’s when my sister and her new husband made the decision to cancel their honeymoon so they could be by my bedside. I felt really sad for them when I found out what they’d done.”

Despite suffering complications during the surgery, Ashlee nevertheless made a full recovery and the tumour turned out to be benign. Nine months on, she is still coming to terms with how close she came to dying. Ashlee and her partner Glenn moved to Perth, Western Australia, just before Jenna’s April wedding, but they have now decided not to go back, preferring to be close to their families and friends. Ashlee knows she’s lucky to be sharing another Christmas with them all.

But she says she still feels guilty about the bad timing of her brush with death. “Jenna says I can’t keep thinking that I ruined her big day. She’s happy that I’m okay now and alive, which is more important to her by far.”

As well as Christmas, Ashlee also has her own wedding to look forward to, hopefully with no life-or-death dramas. Glenn proposed to her when they were in Perth and their own big day will be in two years’ time.

She says it will be not only a celebration of her and Glenn’s love, but a chance for her family to share in her joy in having a second chance at life. “I will always be grateful to everyone, especially Jenna. I could not have been as strong as I was if it weren’t for her. She really helped me through the whole ordeal, including my recovery. She even gave up her honeymoon to sit beside my hospital bed, willing me to get better. That kind of sacrifice takes a very special kind of person.”

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