'I will be eternally grateful for their quick-thinking and empathy' – Kendal pair praised

Our quick-thinking colleagues Abby Carradus and Taila Stephenson have been praised after coming to the aid of a customer who was having a heart attack in the car park of our Kendal store.

Their actions have been hailed by the lady's daughter who said: "These kind and thoughtful ladies may well have saved my mother's life."

Abby, who's service section leader, and bakery section leader Taila rushed to the lady's car after being alerted by a shopper.

Abby said: "We got a first aid call to say that a lady was struggling to breathe. We just wanted to make sure she was alright. She was fine sat in the car, but when she went to stand up she was breathing really heavily.

"We decided to call an ambulance to check her over as we didn't want her to drive home. She kept saying 'I'm fine, I'm fine, I'll drive home' and we were like 'no, you're not going anywhere'. We stayed with her talking to her until ambulance arrived."

The lady was taken to Lancaster Royal Infirmary with what was believed to be a chest infection, but it subsequently turned out that she'd had a heart attack. She has since made a good recovery.

In a letter to the store, the customer's daughter wrote: "These kind and thoughtful ladies may well have saved my mother's life when they stayed with her for over an hour despite my mother's protestations that she wanted to go home. My mother was suffering from severe breathlessness and was having, what we later found out, to be having a heart attack. I will be eternally grateful for their quick-thinking and empathy and don't have adequate words to thank them enough."

Customer trading manager Rachael Maplethorpe said: "Abby and Taila were amazing. After assessing the lady they felt this she needed urgent medical attention so called for an ambulance and waited with her until the ambulance arrived. We believe that things could have been very different had they had not have done what they did. Without a doubt they potentially saved this lady's life."