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A smiling girl poses beside the birthday cake at her 18th party. An hour later she was dead.
Surrounded by family and friends and smiling excitedly, Leanne Dennis is pictured beside her 18th birthday cake.
For weeks, the party had been all the student could talk about – and more than one hundred people had joined in the celebrations.
But barely an hour after the cake had been cut, Leanne collapsed and died from a mystery condition.
 Yesterday her mother Geraldine Savage spoke of the family’s devastation.
“She was eighteen years old and full of life and the next thing she is dead” she said
“An hour after she blew out her birthday candles, she was gone.”
“She had so much to look forward to and to be taken so young is wrong. I just want to know what happened to her”
Leanne’s family hopes an inquest later this month will reveal what caused her death.
She had been born with a heart defect and had an operation when she was two, to replace heart valves. But she had since had regular check-ups and was thought to be fit and healthy.
Leanne, from Tuebrook, Liverpool, had been dancing with friends at the party at the Cricketers Social Club in Wavertree when she suddenly collapsed.
“Leanne was on such a high about the party” said Mrs Savage, thirty seven. “She was having a good time and was dancing and laughing”.
“ I was on the dance floor when she collapsed and at first I thought she had fainted or was messing about.
All her friends were on their mobile phones calling 999 and then the paramedics arrived and cleared everyone out”
Leanne – who lived at home with her mother, eight-year-old brother Stephen, sister Jennie, fifteen and stepfather Michael Savage – was taken to Royal Liverpool Hospital but was declared dead a few hours later.
To compound their heartbreak, when Leanne’s family returned to the social club afterwards to collect her presents they found thieves had got there first and stolen everything.
Mrs Savage said: “I feel sick when I think about it. I was going to spend the birthday money on a plaque for her at college”.
Leanne had been studying travel and tourism at Liverpool Community College.
One element of the inquest into her death will be to determine whether she was a victim of Sudden Death Syndrome.
The condition commonly strikes those who are fit and strong but have an undiagnosed heart condition, often at times of stress or when a person is playing sports.
The Charity Cardiac Risk in the Young says between four and eight youngsters die from undiagnosed heart conditions every week in Britain.
A simple electrocardiogram (ECG) test can detect problems and the charity wants to introduce routine heart screening in schools and sports clubs.
In 1992 Daniel Yorath, the son of former Wales football manager Terry died suddenly while playing football.
Tests revealed he suffered from an inherited heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which causes a thickening of the heart muscle and an irregular heartbeat.
In March, the Government announced it was setting up a body to raise awareness of the condition and advise the Department of Health on future policy.
Public health minister Melanie Johnson said at the time; “It is devastating for families when a young, apparently healthy person dies suddenly without warning.”
“The majority of people with the underlying conditions do not have any symptoms for all or most of their life. However the condition can lead to sudden and unexpected death, often in early adulthood
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