Mum comes out of coma as loved ones play special tune

Having suffered catastrophic heart failure at her North Baddesley home, Cheryl Horton-Powell’s family were warned to prepare for the worst.

But determined not to let her go without a fight, her loved ones decided to play her favourite music to her as she lay for days in a coma in intensive care.

What happened next defied all the odds and left her doctors and family stunned.

Within seconds of her favourite song, Dynamo by Si Cranstoun, starting, the 53-year-old literally began dancing her way out of the medically induced coma – tapping her feet and bobbing her head to the music as she gradually regained consciousness.

Cheryl said: “I have always loved rockabilly music and used to dance to it all the time.

“When I discovered Si’s music, just a few months before my collapse, I just thought his sound was brilliant and so authentic, so my family knew how much I enjoyed playing his songs.

“The children were worried I was going to dislodge the tubes because as soon as they played that song to me, I started jiving in bed. That was the turning point, it was their mum coming back to them, showing them that I was still in there.”

The drama unfolded in November last year, when Cheryl, who had no history of heart problems, suddenly collapsed in her kitchen.

Hearing a noise from the living room, her daughter rushed in to discover her mum fitting on the floor and frothing at the mouth.

Terrified, Jemma frantically started life-saving CPR, before paramedics arrived and quickly took her to Southampton General Hospital.

There, Jemma, Cheryl’s son Joe and Cheryl's husband Jef, were warned that her chances of survival were 50/50 and that even if she did wake up, she may never be able to walk, talk or even smile again.

However, three days after her collapse her family decided to put a pair of headphones on her in the hope that it would trigger something inside her.

Jef, 52, a DJ, said: “We were stunned. Her reaction was instant. She started to move and have a little jiggle, so much so that we were worried that she was going to set off the machines she was attached to.

“We just thought ‘wow, she can hear us, she is still in there somewhere’.

"She just kept trying to dance to it and the doctors knew it wasn’t just a reflex.”

To the amazement of her doctors, Cheryl regained her speech after just three days, and two weeks later she had made a full recovery and was back at home.

She has been diagnosed with the hereditary heart muscle condition cardiomyopathy and has been fitted with a defibrillator – a small device that can shock her heart should it stop beating again.

Cheryl added: “I get very emotional when I listen to the song now and when I listen to the words it just sounds like it was meant for me.

“Now I have my own dynamo on my heart. It is very apt.”

Unsurprisingly, the song now plays a big part in their lives – it was played at the couple’s wedding in Las Vegas last month, and 21-year-old Jemma has had the notes of the song tattooed onto her side (above).

And after hearing about how his music helped to bring her back to life, Si Cranstoun has offered to help Cheryl arrange a fundraising event for the cardiac intensive care unit at Southampton General Hospital and the British Heart Foundation.