A grandmother from Bradford was saved from almost certain death - by being refused a flight home from Tokyo.

Speaking for the first time since collapsing in agony at Tokyo airport, Bradford mother-of-six Janet Rylance revealed she probably wouldn't have survived if she had been allowed to board the plane.

The 54-year-old was given a 50-50 chance of recovery by surgeons at the Narita Red Cross Hospital after being rushed there for an emergency eight-hour operation to remove three blood clots from her brain - one of which had burst.

She was on her way home to Bradford, stopping off in Japan, after a six-week holiday in Queensland when she began suffering from what she thought was a severe migraine.

Doctors told her son Stephen Lister that without the operation she would have been dead within two weeks.

Speaking to the Telegraph & Argus, Janet, a former clerical typist of Croft House Close, Wibsey, said: "I can't remember too much about it all. I got to Tokyo and had a really severe migraine and just collapsed and was sick.

"The pain in my neck was appalling. I was trying to get through duty-free and it just took hold and I went really dizzy and crouched down and took myself off to see if I could come round.

"The next thing I knew I was being sick in the toilet and three people went out to get help for me. I don't remember much after that."

She said she had got off one plane in Tokyo and was waiting to board another home but was refused access because of the headaches.

Janet said: "I was crying and trying to get on to the plane and they said they were not willing to risk it.

"Staff rushed me to hospital and a specialist put me through an X-ray machine and told me I had three aneurisms (permanent abnormal swelling of an artery).

"The doctor said: 'Are you ready for this?' I said: 'What's going on?' He said: 'You need to get in touch with your son because we need to operate.' I just broke down and gave him my son Stephen's number. That's the last I remember.

"They saved my life by not allowing me on to the plane - I almost certainly would have died otherwise."

The operation was a success and Janet began three weeks convalescence, being looked after for the first two by her eldest daughter Susan Bailey and then by another family member who flew to Tokyo.

She was eventually flown home and taken to Bradford Royal Infirmary for an overnight assessment and an emotional reunion with her close-knit family.

She was then transferred to St Luke's Hospital in Bradford before finally being allowed home. Doctors have told her she should get her memory back fully in time and her speech and eyesight should also settle down.

Janet added: "It's fantastic to be home. I can't thank everybody enough for all the help they have given and how everyone has rallied round.

"I thank God for my family and how they have been so supportive. I don't think I would have recovered as quickly as I did if it had not been for them."

Her son-in-law David Blamires, a church warden at Buttershaw's St Aidan's Church, said: "They got her to Bradford Royal Infirmary and the doctors woke her up and asked if she recognised anyone. We were all standing around the bed.

"It was a magical moment when she said: 'They are my children.' They had to pull the curtain round us all - it was very emotional, we all broke down and cried. Later we opened the champagne."

Stephen added: "She named us all, one by one. With that I knew she was going to be OK. She hadn't seen me for 13 weeks.

"When the doctors first contacted me my initial thought was that the plane had crashed. Then it kicked in. Later I was told that if they hadn't operated she would have had two weeks to live.

"She looked like a POW when we first saw her at Bradford Royal Infirmary. She was shrivelled up and curled up into a ball. She had lost a stone in weight and her hair had been shaved. But she is doing well now and we've been told there should be no long term damage."

Consultant neurologist at Bradford Royal Infirmary, Dr Mark Busby, said: "The doctors in Japan would have been keen to operate because of the risk of re-bleeding once an aneurism had burst. That is why they need to operate early. Any brain surgery is high-risk but if she is at home she sounds to be doing really quite well. It's not uncommon but what is uncommon is for it to happen at Tokyo airport."

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