I’m known as the one-hour wife after I was married for just 60 minutes – the best day of my life turned into the worst

IT SHOULD have been the happiest day of Johnnie Davis’s life.

She was marrying her soulmate Toraze, 48, and during the beautiful ceremony they were surrounded by all of their family and friends.

Johnnie Davis was married for just one hour before the unthinkable happenedCredit: supplied

She had planned the perfect ceremony and it should have been the happiest day of her lifeCredit: supplied

But just moments after this photo was taken, Johnnie's husband Toraze suffered a cardiac arrest and diedCredit: supplied

But as they stepped outside the church to take wedding photos, their joy turned to unspeakable tragedy.

“Toraze turned to me and kept repeating ‘I can’t breathe I’m so hot, I need some water,’” recalls Johnnie, 44, in this exclusive interview.

“He was wearing a suit and it was a hot day and I thought that maybe he was having a panic attack.

“He kept apologising to me and telling me how much he loved me, I never imagined what would happen next.”

Unthinkable tragedy

A split second later Toraze collapsed on the floor next to his bride. An ambulance arrived within minutes and paramedics started to load him into the vehicle.

“It was so surreal,” says Johnnie, who lives in Nebraska.

“Only ten minutes before, we’d finished saying our wedding vows, promising to cherish each other until death do us part.

“Now my husband was being loaded into an ambulance to go straight to hospital. The paramedics needed to work on him, so I followed in another car.

“When I got to the hospital the doctors made me wait outside, as they were trying to resuscitate him.

“It was 40 agonising minutes before I was allowed in.

“He’d had a cardiac arrest in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and there was nothing that they could do to save him.

“The doctors let me into the room and I saw him lying there on the hospital bed.

“I begged doctors to save him, I’d only just lost my dad a few months before, I couldn’t lose my husband too.

“But Toraze was gone.

“My husband whom I’d married just an hour before had passed away. I just couldn’t take any of it in.

“The doctors told me that he’d suffered a blood clot that had broken off and travelled to his heart, causing the massive cardiac arrest. It was devastating.

“Years ago he had one blood clot and was on medication for it. But now this time there was no bringing him back.”

Devastated bride

The next few weeks passed in a blur for Johnnie. She had lots of support from all her friends and family.

Their four year old daughter O’Ceann kept asking where her daddy was, but no-one could bring Toraze back.

“I had to try and imagine life now without him,” says Johnnie.

“I’d lost my dad too from leukaemia in February, my other daughter Rich had also lost her dad too, a few months previously, and my cousin had died in February. And now we had lost Toraze too. We all felt broken.

“I just had to try and get some comfort from the fact that Toraze and I had actually had the chance to say our wedding vows, and pledge our love to each other.

“I’d thought I was the luckiest woman alive to have married Toraze. He was such a gentle giant.

“I’d seen him driving down the street 17 years ago, and we had a chat and there was a spark there. But we were both married at the time, so we knew that nothing could come of it.

“Then years later, I applied to do some fostering, and the boy I was asked to foster just happened to be Toraze’s son.

“He had been unable to look after him at the time, so when I saw him again outside a local shop a few years later, I called out to him.

I just had to try and get some comfort from the fact that Toraze and I had actually had the chance to say our wedding vows
Johnnie Davis

“We talked about his son, and the fact that I’d fostered him for a while, and the spark was still there between us.

“This time, we were both divorced, so we started dating and became a couple. It was as though we were always meant to be together.”

Memories to last

Toraze proposed to Johnnie in January 2017, 18 months before their daughter was born.

“When she arrived into the world, he was the most amazing dad to her,” says Johnnie.

“She was his absolute world, and she meant everything to him. They were inseparable.

“When we fixed our wedding date for June last year, we were both so excited. We couldn’t wait to become husband and wife.

“We would have the ceremony in our local church, then have everyone for a big reception celebration nearby.

“I chose the most gorgeous red dress to get married in, and I had my hen do in Las Vegas.

“It just seemed like a lovely thing to look forward to, after we had lost family members, we wanted something happy to celebrate and our wedding day was certainly going to do that.

“Toraze and I had stood facing each other as the minister said the vows for us to repeat to each other.

“I couldn’t believe that all those years later, we were finally getting married.

“He was my soulmate and as the minister had pronounced us married, it felt like the happiest day of our lives, and a life together that was just beginning.

“Now we have the rest of our lives without him there.