A mother-of-one who had a cardiac arrest at Cardiff Airport has thanked those who saved her life.

Alice Mogford, 48, from Neath, had just returned to the airport in Rhoose from a trip to Belfast when she collapsed in the arrivals hall and stopped breathing.

Airport staff began CPR and used a defibrillator on Ms Mogford before the ambulance service arrived.

She was taken to the hospital where she had surgery and spent six weeks in recovery.

She said: "I’d like to relay my sincere thanks to everyone involved in saving my life.

"I know now that the survival rate for cardiac arrests is really low, so I guess I was in the right place at the right time.

"They deserve all the praise in the world."

Ms Mogford and her family had been visiting her native Belfast.

Her partner, Neil Evans, 60, said: "Alice had a bit of discomfort on the plane, but we thought it was something or nothing.

"Then as we got off the plane and were walking through the terminal building, she just keeled over backwards."

First aiders at the airport immediately started the ‘chain of survival’ by giving chest compressions to Alice and delivering three shocks with a defibrillator.

Aircraft dispatcher Chloe Hobbs coordinated the scene.

By chance, she had completed her Community Welfare Responder (CWR) training with the Welsh Ambulance Service a month prior.

She said: "Alice’s condition deteriorated rapidly, and as the airport fire section arrived, she stopped breathing and went into cardiac arrest.

"The fast response from the airport first responders allowed them to start chest compressions immediately, and within 40 seconds a defibrillator was attached, which was a vital part of Alice’s survival."

Ms Mogford was taken to the University Hospital of Wales, and later Swansea’s Morriston Hospital, where she was fitted with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD).

After her six-week stay in hospital, she is recovering at home and is encouraging the public to learn CPR.

Ms Mogford said: "I get how the general public would ‘freeze’ in that situation, but having lived through this first-hand, my message is that you can’t possibly do more damage, so give CPR a go."