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For 25 years, Carmen walked along a Sydney beach. All she wanted was to see it one last time.

 

 

For 25 years, Carmen Leon de la Barra and her husband Antonio walked along the beach at Sydney’s Brighton-Le-Sands.

Each evening, they would finish work at their accounting firm in Mascot and head to the beach where they would watch the waves with a thermos of tea in hand.

Last week Carmen’s family, along with a team of paramedics and palliative care nurses, helped her to see the beach she loved so much for the last time.

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Carmen had developed terminal bowel cancer and was in palliative care in Sydney’s west. It had been at least two months since she had last seen the water.

Knowing she had just days to live, she longed to see the sunset and the ocean with her husband by her side one last time.

Her family were determined to make it happen, so they contacted charity Dreams2Live4 who worked with paramedics and nurses to grant Carmen’s final wish.

Last Wednesday a NSW ambulance helped Carmen make the hour-long trip from Mt Druitt Palliative Care to Brighton-Le-Sands accompanied by Antonio, the couple’s three children and their partners and their nine grandchildren.

Carmen "lit up" when she saw the beach.
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She was surrounded by her husband, three children and nine grandchildren.

Son Jose described the moment his mother saw the ocean again as "incredible".

"Mum just lit up as soon as she got here and she felt the wind on her face," he said on Sunrise.

"She had been unresponsive for much of that day and some of the day before as well. And for us to see her open her eyes and say a few words and experience that - she knew where she was immediately as she got here - and that was very special for us as well."

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Carmen died two days later on Friday night.

The Daily Telegraph reported she and Antonio met aged 10 in Chile and migrated to Sydney in 1989.

Six years later they opened their accounting firm in Mascot and had walked the beach almost every day since.

Carmen's story is reminiscent of the 2017 story of two Queensland paramedics who granted a palliative care patient her wish of seeing the ocean again by taking her to Hervey Bay.