A mother who was stabbed eight times by her abusive partner praised her "hero" daughter for staying by her side and calling for help.

Claire, who has not shared her surname, was hosting a movie night for her daughter and her best friend during the horrific attack on July 25, 2020.

The mother fell asleep in the living room, but woke up after feeling a scratch on her neck and found her partner holding a knife to her throat.

She said: “I remember the stab I received to my abdomen, as my whole body wrenched up with that one. I was also punched across the room. But other than that, I don’t remember a lot.”

Covered in Claire’s blood, the man approached the two teenage girls, smashing their phones and warning them not to leave the room.

Hearing her mum begging from the lounge and unable to use the call function on her phone, Claire’s 12-year-old daughter managed to use Apple’s virtual assistant Siri to dial 999.

“She’s my hero,” said Claire. “As a mother sometimes I wished she had run and made sure she was safe, but she told me she just wasn’t able to leave me.”

London’s Air Ambulance crew rushed to the home in Harrow Weald to save Claire.

Dr Matt Mak, London’s Air Ambulance Consultant, recollected: “When we arrived outside Claire’s flat she was unconscious, she was pale, and she had lost quite a bit of blood. We gave Claire an emergency anesthetic and a blood transfusion, and we inserted an arterial line to closely monitor her blood pressure.

“The nature of these injuries means that time is critical and we have to provide these interventions at the scene, as we don’t have time to make it to hospital.”

The trauma team performed a life-saving intubation before taking Claire to St Mary’s Hospital.

Claire had been stabbed through the face, in the side of her head, in the abdomen and in the chest. Her throat had also been cut.

She immediately underwent operations to repair her wounds, one of which was to remove part of her bowel and reattach the undamaged section.

Being left-handed, Claire was unable to use her hands for a year due to nerve damage on the left side of her body.

She said: “I awoke knowing I could never go back to my home. I could never live in a house where someone had tried to kill me. So I was worried about being homeless. I was so worried about what my daughter had seen. I felt like my whole life was completely ruined.”

The knife victim described herself at first as a “35-year-old baby”, unable to feed or clean herself needing her own mum to look after her.

Ove two years and with “baby steps”, Claire made a miraculous recovery and has regained the use of both her hands and has full movement back in her shoulder.

Claire continued: “Now, I have a new home and I am grateful to be alive. My daughter is doing well, she recently won an award at school for exceptional young people. This experience has inspired me to do good things with my life.”

Her partner pleaded guilty to attempted murder and was jailed for life.

Claire says that without the London Air Ambulance’s help, she would never have survived the attack.

She is now training to be a domestic violence worker, to help other women in similar situations.

If you have been affected by anything similar to this story and would like advice, please reach out to The Freephone National Domestic Abuse Helpline, run by Refuge, available on 0808 2000 247, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The helpline is answered by fully trained female support workers and volunteers who will answer your call in confidence.