‘Why did you leave me’: Mum-of-seven Clarissa Glen-Norman found collapsed in bedroom

It was a night like any other when Clarissa Glen-Norman said she was feeling tired and wanted to lie down. What her partner discovered next was heartbreaking.

Mum-of-seven Clarissa Glen-Norman was 38 years old when she was found collapsed on the bedroom floor having had a heart attack. Picture: Supplied by family,

It was like any other night at Clarissa Glen-Norman and Brian Olman’s Munno Para home.

It was August 12 and they were caring for their loving family, including their 18-month-old baby Brian Jnr. Clarissa said she was feeling tired and wanted to lie down.

A few minutes later, when Brian went to find the 38-year-old, he discovered her unresponsive on their bedroom floor.

“I came in and I asked her ‘why are you on the ground?’,” Brian said.

But when he reached over and couldn’t find the mum-of-seven’s pulse he immediately began CPR while calling an ambulance.

“I heard one more gasp of air and then nothing,” he said.

“I put my fingers to her neck for a pulse, I could feel nothing, I put my hand on her mouth, I couldn’t feel air.

“I quickly rang triple-0 and the lady told me to start pushing down as hard as I could to make sure I could get that heart pumping … it felt like a million years.”

Clarissa and Brian’s children. Picture: Supplied by family.

Brian attempted to perform CPR on his partner to save her but ultimately Clarissa died in hospital. Picture: Supplied by family.

Family members proceeded to enter the room to help Brian try to revive his partner.

“I was screaming my head off, ‘she’s not breathing, her lips are blue’,” he said.

Clarissa was rushed to Lyell McEwin Hospital and placed in an induced coma.

Days later doctors delivered the devastating news to Brian that his partner’s brain would never recover. She had suffered a heart attack that night and was brain dead.

“They just couldn’t believe she had one,” he said.

“I didn’t know what to do or say, I just burst out, ‘tell me why did you leave me, you said you’d never leave me’.”

Clarissa while pregnant with her baby Brian. Picture: Supplied by family.

Clarissa after the birth of baby Brian. Picture: Supplied by family.

Brian said he still is holding onto hope the love of his life will walk through their front door.

“Our son is two in October and he’s starting to realise mummy’s not around and he’s starting to look around for her,” he said.

But on Friday August 16 he decided to turn off life support and donate her organs to save others, just as Clarissa wanted.

Brian said his partner was an extremely bubbly woman who was caring and loving.

“(She) was always trying to help everyone else more than herself,” he said.

“She loved dancing, she’d just turn music on, do her little ballerina stuff and she loved her netball.

“But her kids have always been her world, she’d always say she’d want to make them become good humans.”

Clarissa ran pay-it-forward and anti-scammer Facebook pages as a way to look out for vulnerable people.

She’d also up-cycle old furniture and create fairy gardens inside old glass jars.

She is survived by her husband Brian Olman and her children Deegan Waye, 20, Braidyn Waye, 18, Brian Jnr Olman, 18, Ariyana Olman, 15, Khloe Rust, 14, Sienna Rust, 14, Sienna Rust, 11 and Brian Olman III, 18-months.

If you’d like to donate to the family, you can here.

Originally published as ‘Why did you leave me’: Mum-of-seven Clarissa Glen-Norman found collapsed in bedroom