Organ donation

I passed John’s bedroom and I could see him laying on the bed, in his shorts, he’d obviously had a shower. And he was snoring, but I thought it was snoring. So I just left him, and I put my briefcase in the study, took my coat off. And came downstairs again. But Gemma [our dog] wouldn’t come down with me, as she stayed upstairs.                                 

So I think I put the kettle on, made a cup of tea. I then went back upstairs and walked into the study, and John was still snoring away, so I thought I’d wake him up and make a joke about it. But I couldn’t wake him.

This little bit I’m not sure how I feel about this, maybe it’s my background training, well I don’t know but my mind suddenly went very cold, very clinical, and suddenly it wasn’t John there on the bed. It was somebody and there was something wrong. He had a pulse, he was breathing a bit heavily, that’s why I thought it was snoring, slight amount of spit at the side of his mouth.

So I moved him into the recovery position, phoned for an ambulance straightaway. And I told them I couldn’t wake him, and he said an ambulance would be with you very shortly. “Had I put him in the recovery position?” “Yes.” “Did he have a pulse?” “Yes.” And all the questions.                   

I then phoned Catherine [my wife] and told her what had happened. I then went downstairs, next door and asked them to look after Gemma, which they did. And in a matter of minutes the ambulance came.

The medics came up and did a quick check, checked the eyes. I don’t know what the results of that was, but they checked the eyes. One of them said to me, “Do you know if your son does drugs?” And I remember thinking at the time, I’d bet my life that he did not do drugs, but I wasn’t prepared to bet his. So I said, “No, not as far as I know. I doubt it, but I can’t give you a guarantee.” So they said, “Fine.” They took him downstairs.        

Now up to then I think he’d been playing, maybe he’s just exhausted. But I didn’t know why. I think, I didn’t know what to think at that time. I was just not sure what was happening.                   

They took him into the ambulance and asked me to stay outside. I remember Catherine arrived and, as she said, and the doctor came out and he looked as though it wasn’t good. And he said they were going to take him to hospital. Would one of us care to go with him? And I thought well, I don’t know what’s happening so I thought I’d better go and Catherine could follow. So we went off into the ambulance.
 

It was August 2003 and my son, Martin, was 16 years old. He’d just left school and was waiting to enrol in the local college. And he was perfectly healthy; he’d always been a perfectly healthy boy. No major illnesses, no time off school. He was a boy with a capital B.

It was a Wednesday evening and he went to bed as normal, seemingly perfectly alright, and around about 2 o’clock in the morning I heard an almighty thump coming from his bedroom. And he slept in bunk beds at the time and I thought he’d fallen out of bed. And then I heard more bumpings and bangings and I sat up in bed and said, “Are you alright Martin?” And with that he appeared in our bedroom doorway and literally collapsed in front of me.                                   

I couldn’t rouse him, and realised that it was clearly something serious. So I rang for an ambulance. The ambulance took us to our local hospital. At this point there was only myself and Martin in the house. My oldest son was staying at his girlfriend’s and my husband was away on business.  

             
Martin was always fit and healthy, and this came completely out of the blue?

It did, it came absolutely completely out of the blue. He’d never had any ailments beforehand; you know he’d just been a really healthy boy. We did find out afterwards that it was actually a congenital condition. He suffered from a condition called an arteriovenous malformation of the brain. Which is a congenital condition, but not something we knew anything at all about.

There were no side effects, no symptoms, no warning of this. We were told that it would have been like a twig snapping, that the bleed would have been so catastrophic that it would literally have just been a very sudden snap. One minute he was fine, the next minute he was in a deep coma.
 

For us it was something that happened totally unexpectedly. [My son] and I were coming home for me to drop him off at home before I went off to a friend’s to do a job for her. And we found John [my husband] unconscious in the hallway.

So we had no warning, no nothing. And things really unfold from there basically. [My son] ran to a neighbour, I dialled 999, you know and it literally just, things just took off from there and we originally, John was admitted to [name of] hospital, which is the local hospital for us, who were brilliant in every sense.      

They obviously cared for him, and started to establish what had happened and actually it transpired that he’d had an aneurysm in the base of his brain, or base of his neck and this had ruptured or whatever happens in these situations. And that had led to two major brain haemorrhages, the like of which it was probably very unlikely he would survive from. But obviously there’s always hope and we were in [the local] hospital for some hours.                                

                          
So you rang an ambulance? Did that all happen quickly, they came quickly?
                                 
Very quickly, yeah. Their response, in fact the operator on the telephone, my neighbour had arrived as I was talking to the operator on the telephone. She was talking us through getting him in the recovery position.                             

They sent a quick response car, which was the first paramedic to arrive, and then a full sort of ambulance arrived after that. But they were brilliant, the medical care, not just to John but also to [my son] and I, was absolutely second to none.                       

People, these paramedics had their job to do. They were, obviously their priority was discovering what had happened to John and to get him into the ambulance and whatever else they needed to do. But during that time they were keeping me as well informed as they possibly could, telling me what it could be.

Obviously they didn’t know and they explained that they were getting him to hospital, where they’d run tests. They’d started establishing what it wasn’t and what it could be.

But I can remember being treated like a human being who, in fairness, was not their priority, and they kept me up to date with everything both in the house and then when we went to [hospital name], there was a young doctor who basically was delivering me the news that he thought that it was highly unlikely John would survive what had happened.              
 

Sandra' She was 11 years old at the time. It was her last day in school. The night before she’d asked if she could stay with her Gran because, unfortunately, I was working in the morning. My husband was on the nightshift and my son was, he was in secondary school and he was to go to school. So she wanted a long lie. She didn’t want to get up, she wouldn’t, and her Gran pampered her every night. So they had a girls’ night, so this was her idea.                        

I used my mobile phone for my alarm clock. So my mobile phone went at half five in the morning and I’d set it for six. And I’d looked at it, and it said Mum’s phone on it. And I just heard my mother-in-law screaming that there was a problem with Rachel. She couldn’t get her awakened.

So I ran out, jumped in the car and my mother in law just stays up the road. And my mum had died of a brain haemorrhage when I was 17, and then when I looked at Rachel I knew there and then, being a nurse myself, that’s exactly what was going on with her.         
               
We called the ambulance crew, who were fantastic and came and they kind of take over and they got her down. And we were taken to the children’s hospital.   

In my heart of hearts I kind of knew there was something serious going on, I could see in the background what was happening but, as a parent, you know,       

Craig' You’re still hoping aren’t you?                   

Sandra' Yeah.                                  

Craig' I mean I took, I went up to my mum’s, and then I went down to get to my son and took him up to my mum’s. And I took her bag up with her nightie and toothbrush, because although, as Sandra said, “Look it’s her brain, something’s wrong.” I thought well she’s taken an epileptic fit. I didn’t for the life of me start to think how serious it was.

I knew it was, I wasn’t out there, it wasn’t kind of an ordinary thing to happen but I knew, I didn’t appreciate how serious it was. It wasn’t until you started to see consultants and people turning up to work at that time of the morning with jeans and a t-shirt and a pair of trainers on that you know that it’s a serious state because these guys don’t get called out as a matter of routine. But they fought like mad to try and save her.