A former cricket player whose wife died suddenly in Waitrose has paid tribute to his ‘loving, generous and kind’ partner.
Duncan Pauline, 64, said he and his wife, Wiyada, had been planning on retiring to her home country of Thailand before she suddenly collapsed and died in the supermarket in Ether High Street, Surrey, on Wednesday.
The former Surrey County Cricket Club star said they had even bought their forever home in Southeast Asia, but he will now tragically have to make the near-6,000 mile journey alone with her ashes.
Wiyada, whose nickname was ‘Lek’ – which translates to small in Thai – had been buying groceries in the upmarket store at around 6pm when she suddenly collapsed and died in front of horrified shoppers.
Paramedics and police rushed to help following reports of ‘concern’ over Wiyada’s condition after the fall, but she was pronounced dead at the scene.
The supermarket and surrounding high street were shut while emergency crews, including the air ambulance, responded. The store has since reopened.
Mr Pauline said he received a call from one of her friends to say his wife of 22 years had fallen, which he expected would have been no more than a ‘knock on the head’.
But the news of her death, around 45 minutes after she had left their house, has left him ‘absolutely devastated’.
He told The Sun: ‘She had a cloth over her head and she looked very peaceful when they pulled the cloth off her head.
‘She was only 46, it’s a shock that she could go so young. We’ve been married for 22 years and we were due to retire in a couple of years.’
Mr Pauline, who now coaches at Esher Cricket Club, says it ‘won’t be easy’ to take his Buddhist wife’s ashes to her family in Thailand.
He added: ‘I was the one who should have died, not her. I’m a lot older than her and I smoke and drink. I didn’t even think about her going first.’
Wiyada’s cause of death has not yet been confirmed by Mr Pauline or the authorities.
The couple lived together at Esher Cricket Club, where Wiyada would cook Thai food for hundreds of members.
Despite being in such close proximity all the time, Mr Pauline said their relationship was so strong that they ‘hardly ever argued’.
He paid tribute to Wiyada as a ‘giver’ and a ‘happy, loving, generous and kind person’ and told how she even saved his life in 2014.
The former cricket player said he had contracted a ‘flesh-eating’ condition, which led doctors to cut his leg off, and plunged him into a coma.
And it was Wiyada’s desperate pleas to keep his life support on for one more day which he says kept him alive, as ‘things started to work again’ the very next day.
She had looked after him in the decade since as he adjusted to life in a wheelchair.
A Surrey Police spokesman said after the incident: ‘Officers were called to Waitrose on Esher High Street shortly after 6pm on Wednesday, 20 August by the South East Coast Ambulance Service, who were responding to a medical emergency at the location.
‘Despite the best efforts of paramedics, a woman in her 40s died at the scene. Her next of kin have been informed.
‘There was a significant emergency services presence in the area, including police, South East Coast Ambulance Service, and the Air Ambulance Charity Kent, Surrey, Sussex.
‘Waitrose was closed to allow emergency services to carry out their work, but has since reopened.’
A Waitrose spokesperson told the Daily Mail: ‘Our thoughts are with our customer’s family and loved ones. Our Partners acted quickly and offered support while the emergency teams arrived. We’re now making sure everyone is supported.’