Christiaan had lived in Worcester for six weeks and came home every weekend. The last time I collected him from the rail station he complained he felt 'fluee' and a little under the weather.

On Saturday he left to catch the train to Worcester fully recovered where he was to meet friends that evening. We are a close family and spoke daily. The last time we spoke to Christiaan was Wednesday evening.

It was on the Friday morning when Christiaan didn't show for work that alarm bells rang! He was so reliable and trustworthy that his colleagues suspected something must be wrong for him not to show, so they went to his house. They looked through the letterbox and found him slumped at the bottom of the stairs. Our buoyant, effervescent son so full of life had died from a condition called Myocarditis at the age of 24. 

The loss of our son has turned our world upside down. We had never heard of Sudden Death Syndrome but now know that there is a huge population of people to educate and make aware. If we gave all our young people ECG's with their school inoculations, it would be a step in the right direction to detect hidden and treatable heart conditions preventing unnecessary deaths, sparing many parents agony, pain and give those at risk a chance.

CRY has been an enormous help in providing information and by letting us know that we are not suffering alone. Ursula Bick, a representative for CRY had heard of our loss through a friend and as a result kindly wrote to us. Ursula was able to offer us something that very few people can and that's the same experience of grief. I am exceptionally grateful to the CRY team for their help and continued support through a very emotional time.