Colleen Sanderson, a biomedical scientist at our Trust, had an emotional meeting with 16-week-old baby Grace (pictured together above), whose life she helped save earlier this year. With grateful mum Angela Burgess telling her: “You made my family.”

Angela, 38, had come to Queen’s Hospital in April this year to have a cervical stitch removed – however, Colleen spotted a large foetal bleed when checking a routine blood sample in our Pathology lab. This led to an emergency c-section to deliver baby Grace that day.

While first-time mum Angela had been able to meet Colleen before being discharged from our hospital, she hadn’t been able to see baby Grace as she was in our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the time.

So grateful Angela brought Grace to Queen’s to meet Colleen and thank her once again for her role in saving her life. Colleen’s manager, Xiaohui Tang, who supported Colleen in further examining the sample when she knew something wasn’t right, was also able to meet her.

Colleen, pictured above with Angela and baby Grace, and Xiaohui, said: “She’s beautiful and clearly a fighter. As our role is behind the scenes we don’t often to get to see the patients we’re caring for, so it was very special to meet Grace and Angela. Knowing that we made a difference certainly gave me a lump in my throat.”

Angela, of Brentwood, said: “Without the work Colleen and her colleagues do, Grace wouldn’t be here. I didn’t know this team existed behind the scenes before, you don’t until something like this happens. I truly appreciate what they’ve done for my family, they are NHS heroes.

“When she’s older, I’ll make sure Grace knows what they did for her too, and this will be in her memory book.”

Read more about how Colleen saved Grace’s life.