Elizabeth's Journey - From a 1% Chance of Survival After a Brain Aneurysm Rupture to Supporting Others Through Advocacy
- May 21
- 4 min read
In September 2011, Elizabeth Manuel Bayleigh experienced a "whoosh" in her brain that changed her life forever.
While exercising with her daughter, an aneurysm ruptured. She collapsed with a Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score of 3, the lowest possible score, which carries a 99 percent mortality rate. Her then-husband was told she had sustained an "unsurvivable cerebral event" and would likely be dead by morning.
"I had no idea at all. It just felt like a whoosh," she explains. “I didn’t know that I had collapsed or that I was unconscious. It was like I was looking at a black wall. No pain, no consciousness. Just a black hole." The pressure in her brain was so intense that doctors had to perform a burr-hole procedure during the ambulance journey to the neurosurgical hospital just to keep her alive.
The Drive of a "Comprehensive Girl"
Before her medical emergency, Elizabeth was a force of nature. Her resilience was baked in from childhood. After moving between five different schools by age eleven and emigrating to South Africa for a year, she returned to the UK to find herself bullied for her differences.
"I knew that in terms of my own upbringing, I wanted something different," Elizabeth recalls. "We never had any money. So I came up with this hare-brained idea when I was thirteen to have a career as a barrister."
She leaned into her talent for public speaking and went to university to study law graduating with a LLB (Hons.). She became the first female barrister in her Southampton chambers, and eventually a full-time District Judge.
Having joined the Territorial Army whilst at university to provide an income she eventually went to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. By 1986, she was a commissioned officer and soon became the first female TA officer in the Royal Military Police.
At the time of her rupture, she was a mum of two and the president of St John's Ambulance in Portsmouth, actively training to run the London Marathon to raise funds for her Division.
Survival and the fight for autonomy after a brain aneurysm rupture
Elizabeth not only survived her rupture – she worked to fight her way back to a life she knew. Discharged from hospital in a wheelchair with no NHS rehabilitation, she was left to navigate life with severe brain damage, paralysis and significant sight loss.
"I taught myself to walk again by pushing my wheelchair along the prom." She says. "I did another step each day."
Her recovery was further complicated by what she describes as trauma at home. Elizabeth recalls being over-medicated, isolated, and gaslit during her most vulnerable moments. It was only when she found the courage to come-off 43 pills a day in 2019 that she was able to see the truth of her situation.
"I went through cold-turkey. I had horrible side effects," she says. "But I saw what was really happening, and how unloved and uncared for I was by my then-husband."
The Power of Advocacy
Despite losing 65 percent of her vision, Elizabeth's legal mind remained sharp. She took her medical negligence case to the High Court and won, proving that her life-altering haemorrhage could have been prevented if an original six-millimetre aneurysm had not been missed on a scan twelve years earlier, allowing it to grow to twenty-five millimetres.
A crucial part of Elizabeth's journey has been turning her experience into a platform for others.
"It is all about advocacy," she insists. "You have to help yourself because if you don't help yourself, and shout out for yourself, no-one else will."
She puts this into practice daily. Since 2012, Elizabeth has run a monthly support group for stroke and haemorrhage survivors. She has spoken at Downing Street and the UK Stroke Forum, and she became a lead artist in a Moorfields Eye Hospital exhibition, using her paintings to show the full-sighted world how she perceives her environment with significant sight-loss.
She is also an active member of the HBA Support patient panel, a role that allows her to channel her passion for brain aneurysm awareness, diagnosis, and rehabilitation into tangible action. Being part of the HBA Support community has provided a vital space where she can connect with others who truly understand the complexities of life after a rupture, while allowing her to use her own formidable voice to drive systemic change.
Save of the Month
Today, Elizabeth is happily remarried, to a man who supported her through a second craniotomy in 2023 and a breast cancer diagnosis in 2024. She sits in her Southsea office, looking out at the sea, putting the finishing touches on her memoir, "Save of the Month." The title is a nod to her survival in September 2011, but the content is an A to Z guide for survivors.
"I have 75 percent of a brain left," she says. "But I think my brain is better now than it ever was before my stroke. We have to make the most of what we have got, rather than worry about what we haven't. If I can help just one person feel less alone, then it's worth it."
Brain Aneurysm Resources and support
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