A grieving son is trying to trace a mystery woman in red who tried to help his dying father.

John Ashby collapsed and died suddenly after a day’s fishing in Hythe.

The unidentified woman briefed the emergency services over the phone as Dave Ashby battled to revive him.

Now both Dave and his mother Maureen Ashby, Mr Ashby’s widow, want to meet and thank the good samaritan.

Mrs Ashby, 59, said: “Dave is now plagued with nightmares of that evening and just cannot even put a face to this woman.

“It happened so fast that he barely knows what she looked like, just that she was wearing a red coat.

“We want to find out who she was as my son would like to meet her and thank her for helping that night.

“My son misses his dad lots, he was his best friend, and it is just this woman’s identity that is haunting him now.”

Mr Ashby, 57, who lived in Medway, had come down with his son Dave, 30, to West Parade in Hythe on Friday, November 9, last year for a day’s fishing.

They decided to pack up at 7.45pm and got back to the foreshore to put the fishing equipment into Dave’s car, which was parked just over the sea wall.

At the moment he put the rods on the wall he sensed something was wrong, turned around and saw the woman looking down at his father lying on the concrete. He rushed over to try to revive him.

He also dialled 999 on his mobile and passed the phone to the woman to relay information to the ambulance service.

As a qualified first aider, Dave meanwhile performed CPR on his father as well as mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Paramedics arrived and Mr Ashby was pronounced dead at the scene. The cause of death was confirmed as coronary heart disease.

Mrs Ashby and Dave went back to the scene on November 15 to place flowers and found another bunch placed there. They wonder if it was put there by the good samaritan.

Mrs Ashby, 59, from Cliffe, said: “This has been very hard for me and my son especially. Appealing like this is the only way I can help him.”

She said that Dave, from Strood, was so traumatised and haunted by being in the middle of the tragedy he was unable to talk about it in full for months.

A public appeal had been suggested by a family friend to help him come to terms with it.

The family both want to thank the woman and learn from her what she saw and heard during the tragedy.

Dave was so focused on trying to save his father he did not have time to absorb her appearance in any detail.

Apart from her wearing a red coat he cannot describe her approximate height, build or age range, and this was exacerbated by the darkness that evening.

He does not even remember her handing his phone back to him.