Mum given ‘1% chance of survival’ after cardiac arrest now competing in wheelchair sports events

A woman who was “saved” by her sister after a cardiac arrest left her paralysed and “unlikely to survive” said she wants to show there is “life after a spinal injury”.

Nikki Owen, 65, from Sevenoaks, Kent, suffered a cardiac arrest in February 2025 after feeling “more tired than usual”.

Her sister Sally, 63, performed CPR until ambulance crews arrived and Nikki was taken to hospital, where her family was told to prepare for the worst.

After waking up paralysed from the chest down, Nikki has made an incredible recovery and now plans to attend the Inter Spinal Unit Games in September, where she will compete alongside patients from across the UK who are recovering from spinal injuries.

She will be taking part in swimming, shooting, badminton and table tennis events.

“There is life after a spinal injury, and there is hope,” Nikki told PA Real Life.

“If we open our minds to what we can do, rather than focus on what we can’t, then you suddenly start to realise that all sorts of things are possible.

“I just want to make every second of my life count now, however it unfolds.”

Nikki, a trauma counsellor, said she “always kept very fit” and went to the gym every morning.

She only has “a hazy recollection” of the weeks prior to her cardiac arrest in February, but added: “Everybody who knows me said there were no warning signs, except I had complained of feeling more tired than usual.”

In what proved to be a fortunate decision, her sister Sally decided “unexpectedly” to bring a planned visit forward by a few days.

“I was tired that night, which was unusual for me,” Nikki recalled.

“She’s normally a late riser but she woke up early and messaged me.

“I went into her room and said: ‘I don’t feel very well, would you call an ambulance?’

“Then I passed out and went into cardiac arrest.”

Sally immediately called emergency services and started administering CPR to her sister.

By sheer luck, an ambulance was nearby and arrived within six minutes, taking over from Sally.

Nikki said: “All she could hear was ‘no heartbeat, nothing’.

“Finally, they managed to get a heartbeat of nine beats a minute.

“I feel quite upset that my heart was really struggling to stay alive.”

Nikki was taken to hospital with a tear in her aorta, which meant CPR was forcing blood into her lungs.

“My family was told that I had a 1% chance of survival,” she said.

Nikki’s daughter Rosie, 31, had just landed in Singapore when her husband called her with the news.

Nikki said: “She had to do a 30-hour journey back, praying that I wasn’t going to die before she got there.

“She phoned my brother and asked if he could hold the phone near my ear, even though I wasn’t conscious, and she just said how much she loved me and everything.”

Doctors warned her family she was “likely to be brain-damaged”.

She was also suffering from collapsed lungs and broken ribs from the CPR, as well as pneumonia and sepsis.

When she woke up, she was told the incident had left her permanently paralysed from the chest down.

“My legs felt like I was wearing tight socks made of fire, and the injury site felt like a really tight elastic band,” she recalled.

“I’ve had to get used to those two feelings.”

She also has a “phantom” sensation when she’s lying in bed that her legs are bent and her feet are “squashed into really tight shoes”.

“Sometimes it feels so real that I have to look at my feet to see where they are,” she added.

In May, Nikki was transferred to Stoke Mandeville Hospital’s spinal unit, where she is being taught to adapt to her new life.

This includes how to use a wheelchair and get into bed.

“It took a lot of energy to just sit in a wheelchair because I have no core (strength) – I’m like a floppy doll,” she explained.

After a career of helping others, Nikki said learning to accept help has been humbling but “lovely in its own way”.

She added that her background in trauma counselling was helpful.

“You have to accept what’s happened, and that you’re not being punished – you’re not a bad person,” she said.

She had to “let go” of things such as swimming in the sea, going on long walks with friends, and “dancing to lovely music”.

She added: “The thing that was hardest to come to terms with is the thought that I can’t help my daughter like I was hoping to at the point when she has children.

“That took a little bit longer, but I can still be there and present.”

Now, Nikki focuses on the “amazing things” she still can do, such as joining the Stoke Mandeville team at the Inter Spinal Unit Games in September.

“They just said it’s because I’m good for team morale,” she added.

She will be competing alongside patients from other spinal units across the UK in shooting, swimming, table tennis and badminton events.

She said: “I’m really useless at everything – but I do give it a good go.”

The event is visited by talent scouts for the Paralympics.

She explained: “I’m not saying they’d be looking at me, but isn’t it great that people who have been injured in life-changing ways have suddenly got this whole new life?”

Nikki is in the process of adapting to her new needs, such as buying shoes that fit her swollen feet and swapping her wardrobe of flowing clothes for garments that won’t get caught in her wheelchair.

Because she hopes to one day regain her independence, she will also need accommodation with ramps, lower kitchen surfaces, and light switches she can reach.

Although the council assists with some costs, many are not covered – and so Nikki’s daughter Rosie set up a fundraiser which has raised more than £16,000.

“When she showed me what she’d done, it was just so overwhelming,” Nikki said.

“People have donated that I knew over 30 years ago, and other donations are from total strangers.”

There is still “a long road” to recovery, and Nikki sometimes feels she’s “going backwards”.

She added: “I’ve always been very resilient, but this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through.

“But to have a 1% chance of survival, and for my sister to have been there unexpectedly, for the ambulance to have been just around the corner, I feel that I’m supposed to be alive.”

The fundraiser for Nikki can be found at: https://www.gofundme.com/f/a-new-start-for-mum-after-life-changed-forever