Video: Domestic violence survivor reunited with paramedic saviours

They saved her life and inspired her career as a paramedic. Now, years later, these ambulance officers have been reunited with a former Brisbane domestic violence victim.

WHEN domestic violence survivor Luanne Willingham met the Queensland paramedics who saved her life, words couldn’t do them justice.

For months she had thought about what she’d say when they finally came face-to-face.

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But instead she just cried and hugged them when they met today in Brisbane.

Those paramedics were Cheryl Stace and Ralph Latimer, now retired, who 18 years ago rushed a badly beaten and comatose Ms Willingham to Logan Hospital.

“Not only did you save my life but you gave me a life,” she said as they met on the lawns of the Emergency Services Complex in Kedron.

“I feel very blessed right now.”

Luanne Willingham is reunited with Cheryl Stace. Picture: Richard Gosling/AAP

Their actions inspired Ms Willingham to become a paramedic herself with Ambulance Victoria.

But it’s been a long journey since that night in Rochedale in 2001.

Beaten severely with a ceramic pot Ms Willingham was unresponsive by the time paramedics arrived.

Placed in a coma, she managed to survive, but couldn’t talk about the assault for nearly a decade.

After enduring homelessness and psychological trauma from the attack, she forged a career as a Victorian paramedic.

After graduating she decided she wanted to find the people who had saved her life.

She turned to the media and within three days of The Courier-Mail running her story in July, she found them.

Luanne Willingham (centre) with Cheryl Stace and Ralph Latimer. Picture: Richard Gosling/AAP

Ms Stace said she felt “overwhelming happiness” to meet her former patient.

“He damn near killed her,” she said of Ms Willingham’s attacker.

“So for Luanne to come back from that and make a life for herself, when I first heard about it I couldn’t believe it.”

Mr Latimer, who is 79 and spent nearly 40 years as a paramedic, said he was “pleased Luanne achieved what she wanted to do”.

Ms Willingham, who can still hear Ms Stace’s voice on the night of the assault saying “squeeze my hand”, said the reunion “was a real wow moment”.

“There's no words for it I don't really know how to put it,” she said.

“Saying thank you isn't enough and it will never be enough.”