Becky Feltham, 27, had found the man of her dreams – but one night he went to bed and never woke up. Later, she discovered that he was a victim of the rare Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome.
After attending a friend's wedding on a perfect summer's day, PR consultant Becky Feltham and her partner Pete Reynolds sat in the pub planning their future.
"He kissed me and said he wanted us to get married, have kids and grow old together," she recalls.
"Neither of us could stop smiling."
The couple, who'd known each other for years, grew up in the same area of Bristol and Becky gradually realised that she really fancied the good-looking telephone engineer.
"He was tall, dark and handsome, but nothing happened between us until he moved in with a good friend of mine," says Becky.
"We started to hang out together and we'd chat for hours. Pete was super-fit and went to the gym every day – he was even a black belt in tae kwon do. I was so happy when we started talking about having a family. We were both in our mid-twenties and believed we had plenty of time.
"Let's have two boys," he said.
Pete was close to his brother Andrew and he wanted sons who'd have the same kind of relationship.
But it wasn't to be. A couple of months later, on 13 October 2004, Pete phoned Becky after a visit to the gym to tell her he wasn't well.
He said: "I'm feeling dizzy and I'm having a heart flutter," she recalls.
"I told him to go home and have something to eat." At 10pm I called to see if he was feeling better and he said he was going to get some sleep.
"Goodnight, babe," I said, then put the phone down. That was the last time we spoke.
The next morning, Pete's brother Andrew contacted Becky to say he hadn't arrived at work and wasn't answering his phone.
"Instantly, I knew something was terribly wrong," she says.
"I raced over to Pete's house, but it was too late. I didn't see his body, but he was found lying on the floor, white and lifeless. The paramedics could do nothing, so the coroner took him away. I was completely hysterical. How could he be gone? He was only 27 and so full of life.
Tests revealed that Pete had died of SADS (Sudden Arrhythymic Death Syndrome) due to an undetected arrhythmia of the heart. He was cremated on 26 November 2004 and Becky is still coming to terms with living without him.
"I didn't have a chance to say goodbye," she says.
"I'm having bereavement counselling, but I need to do something positive.
"After his death, a couple of Pete's friends admitted that he'd been complaining of heart palpitations for months. He hadn't said anything to me or had it checked out – and there might be someone reading this who has the same symptoms.
"That's why I'm organising a ball on 11 March to raise funds for the charity Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY). If Pete had been screened and his heart defect treated, he'd still be with us today."
The facts about SADS
Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome (SADS) occurs when a young, apparently fit and healthy person dies unexpectedly from cardiac arrest. Each week in the UK, at least eight young people lose their lives suddenly from undetected heart conditions.
Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) is a national charity campaigning for more awareness of life-threatening cardiac abnormalities in young people, offering support to bereaved families and promoting screening of those at risk.
