Amnesia Mystery Woman Finds Out Who She Is

A gravely-ill woman with amnesia who feared she would die not knowing who she was has been identified after an appeal was seen by millions of people worldwide.

The woman, who called herself Sam, was discovered barely conscious on a California street corner in February and found to be suffering from ovarian cancer.

Her plight was highlighted by a Facebook page set up by friends she met in hospital and the appeal was boosted when she was added to Interpol's missing person database.

She has now been identified as Ashley Menatta, 53, from Pennsylvania, after her nephew saw a news story about the appeal online and alerted his mother.

The FBI passed the tip to Ms Menatta and her nurse Debbie Rough and a reunion has been set up.

She told NBC 7 San Diego: "It was extremely emotional. We were all sobbing. They’re so sorry I had to go through what I did during this time without them."

Ms Menatta has sisters in Colorado and Maryland and never married.

She was born in Pennsylvania and lived in Flagstaff, Arizona, before moving to Southern California, where she lived in La Jolla, Vista and Carlsbad.

Doctors at the Tri City Medical Center in Oceanside, California, believe antibodies from a volleyball-sized tumour she had removed may have caused retrograde amnesia.

As her cancer spread, she feared she would run out of time to find her family and friends.

Although she had been unable to tell firefighters who found her in a Carlsbad, California, street anything about herself, she said she had memories of spending time in Australia and Hawaii.

She wrote in a Facebook post: "Both Australia and Hawaii are extremely familiar to me.

"I remember having brekky almost every morning at the organic restaurant across from the ocean in Cottesloe Beach outside Perth, and dining for months at the restaurants in Byron Bay."