THE heartbroken family of a grandmother who died after a nasty fall are still struggling to come to terms with their loss a year after the accident that led to her death.

Lynda Manning walked to her husband Richard’s car at the end of her daughter Paula’s birthday party at midnight on October 1 2017 and tripped outside Paula’s home.

Her family rushed to her aid and made several increasingly-desperate calls for an ambulance over the next hour.

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When her condition worsened, they took her on the five-minute journey from Liden to GWH themselves.

After being transferred to John Radcliffe Hospital and undergoing emergency neurosurgery, the 68-year-old from South Marston died on October 2, Paula’s birthday.

Richard said: “Watching her on the floor, crying out that nobody’s coming to help her and asking where the ambulance is, was horrible.

“The last thing she said to me was ‘My head hurts’. She didn’t speak the entire time we were in the car or took her into hospital.

“At GWH, they wouldn’t allow me to go in the ambulance with her to Oxford, so that was the last time I saw her.

“We were inseparable for 49 years but were forced apart before her final moments.”

Paula said: “Every time I look out the window, I see it happen again, it feels like she’s been snatched away, it’s a tragedy.

“We felt helpless while we were waiting, it was traumatic and I wouldn’t want anyone else to go through what we’ve gone through, we’re all seeing counsellors and we’re not the same.

“She was just as you expect a mum to be – thoughtful, considerate, kind, loving, I couldn’t fault her.”

Paula’s sister Debbie said: “It’s been a year and I still can’t believe I’m never going to see her again.

“She was an innocent person who enjoyed the simplicity of life – gardening, being with family.

“What I miss the most is not having my mum around to help me through life.”

Richard added: “The void is horrendous when you’ve been with someone for so long – I’m OK, but I’m very lonely.

“We were going to go on holiday to Salisbury together a few days after the birthday party.

“I came home to a half-packed suitcase, which was a hard thing to face.

“She was a very gentle, happy person with a good sense of humour and full of fun.

“She was like a kid at Christmas, every year our house looked like Santa’s grotto.

“She loved animals, living by the countryside and our caravanning holidays, and she was always buying from and giving to charity shops.

“Since I’m disabled, she looked after me and did all the housework while I did all the DIY I could manage, now I do everything, which has been a bit of a learning curve.”

This tragedy has a slim silver lining, which the Mannings discovered after Lynda died.

Richard added: “After she died, I learned that she was an organ donor, she’s saved people’s lives and lives on through them.

“She once said to me that when she died she’d like to be cremated and put next to our cat - she got her wish.

“Now she’s in a pink urn over the fireplace next to the cat’s ashes.

“I still talk to her, I keep everything the way she liked it.

“I have to keep her garden tidy, she’d go mad if any weeds started growing.”