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In the last fortnight three young Midland men
have died during sports events. Emma Pinch speaks to their devastated
families.
Two
weeks ago Lynda Williams was an ordinary mum-of-two. She was juggling a job with
her family life, tidying up after her teenage daughter Kerry, and telling her
football fanatic son David to turn his music down.
It
was on May 16 that her world fell apart. That was the day on which 23-year-old
David collapsed and died while playing football close to their home in Bloxwich,
Walsall. Ambulance men and team-mates tried desperately to resuscitate him but
he was pronounced dead on arrival at Walsall Manor Hospital. It was a tragedy
without any warning.
An inquest, opened and adjourned last week, speculated on the
possibility that he had been a victim of Sudden Adult Death Syndrome — an
umbrella term for heart attack victims where no cause can be established.
Devastated mum Lynda, a 41-year-old packer, says the
unexplained aspects of David’s death make it even harder to cope with.
“I feel so angry,” she says. “There was no reason for
him to die. I want to lash out, but there is nothing and no-one to blame.
“If your child becomes ill, you want to be with them every
minute. I didn’t have that chance. I haven’t been able to say goodbye to
David and tell him just how special he was to us.
“I feel guilty because I wasn’t there when
it
happened.” Lynda says her son was fit and didn’t drink much
perhaps one or two occasional pints with his mates.
“David really lived life to the full and loved playing
football,’ she says. “He also played squash and he would watch any sport on
the TV.
“He was always active, laughing and trying to make everyone
around him happy. He was never ill. He never used to faint or anything like
that.
“My father died of a heart attack eight years ago, but he
had high blood pressure. There are cre no warning signs at all with David.
“The doctor said it was a million to one chance - but I don’t see how that
could he when three young men have died like
this
in the space of two weeks.
“The doctors say his death would have been very quick and
I’m glad he didn’t suffer, but it doesn’t make it any easier. Life will
never be the same for us again.”
Lynda’s grief is shared by Carlotta Lavine. On May 12 her
27-year-old cricketer son Mark Lavine collapsed and died while playing in a
match for Coventry & North Warwickshire Cricket Club.
A
supremely fit young sportsman, he had been on the verge of making the South
African national team.
Speaking from the family home in St Peters, Barbados,
Carlotta is still bewildered by the tragic turn of events.
“Mark had eaten and lived healthily from his childhood,”
she says. “When I heard about his death, it was like a bullet through my
heart, I could not believe it.
“He was always very sporty and had played for cricket clubs
ever since he was a boy. I have collected every story about him since he started
playing professionally.
I brought him up to be healthy and always cooked natural,
local food for him. I would make him fresh drinks from the guava, passion fruit
and cherry trees in my garden and gave him the best upbringing anybody could
have.
“No-one
in my family has a history of illness. Mark didn’t even get sick with the
usual child illnesses like mumps.”
The cause of Mark’s death is still to be determined. A
funeral service for the young sportsman has already taken place in his homeland
of Barbados.
The sudden death of MarIon Hunt, who collapsed on May 18
while playing football for Sutton Football Club, shocked the Midlands.
The talented 23-yearr-old computer operator from Edgbaston,
Birmingham, had dreamed of becoming a professional player
“Marlon was a very fit, clean-living, healthy boy and
everything was going right for him,” says his cousin Melanie Hunt.
“He certainly wasn’t into drugs or anything like that.
"We can’t understand how this could have happened to him
because there is no history of heart trouble in our family.
“He was getting on really well with his girlfriend and he
was a wonderful boy. All the family loved him.”
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An inquest into Marlon’s death was opened and adjourned in Birmingham on
Friday.
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