Neil sent me a
text to say that he had arrived safely, and that the weather and hotel were
great. I picked up the phone that evening to ring him, but then thought he
was on holiday and that tomorrow I would have an excuse to ring him as it
was his birthday. Neil was my youngest child and he often pointed out
that he was grown up now and I should not worry too much about him. I never
got a chance to wish him Happy Birthday the next day. That morning at 5am we
got a call from Emma saying Neil had passed away. She was very upset but so
brave to ring us herself. I will never forget that phone call from Emma; she
said she woke up when she heard a sound and found Neil breathing abnormally.
She alerted the in-house doctor and in spite of people trying to resuscitate
him they were unable to help him.
My older son
was flying to St Lucia that morning. We managed to speak to him before he
left, and were all on the flight to Malaga by 8am. In Spain they do not wait
for the next of kin before the pathologist does an autopsy. Neil had the
highest level of travel insurance but we still had so many problems.
Neil died on
Friday and we were told we could not see him till Tuesday. We got to see our
son the next day, but only after so many phone calls and the help of my
niece whose Spanish friend had contacts with the local judge. It was
devastating sitting in this five star hotel with everybody on holiday around
us when we were waiting to see Neil. We could not believe that they had
already cleaned his room and somebody else had moved in.
We flew back
to UK the next day on the Saturday after we saw him, but my son came back on
the Wednesday. There is so much paperwork to complete when someone dies
abroad and the procedures are so complicated and different from the UK.
Two other
pathologists carried out an autopsy in the UK and the conclusion was SADS.
Our whole family had various cardiac tests but nothing showed up. My son was
such a healthy, happy and positive person who was always smiling. He was
just so full of energy and was always the life and soul of any party. He had
a knack of talking to anyone, and was always so outgoing and happy. He
travelled to so many countries in his gap year and wanted to raise money for
the poor and needy. He achieved so much in his short life. Our family will
never be the same again and his loss has left a great hole in our lives.
We came to
know about the charity CRY after my son’s death. We have found CRY to be a
great source of comfort for our family in these dark times. Reading the long
list of stories of other parents who have lost children on the CRY website
one cannot help but be struck by how sad and unnecessary this loss of life
is.
Neil was the
recipient of the TASS (Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme) sports
scholarship for a number of years, which provides funding, and prescribes
athletes intense training programmers and diets, yet he was not given any
health checks before embarking on these activities. Had we known about
cardiac risk in the young we would have had Neil checked, however, it may be
that the onus should be on the Government to test these young athletes...
In the UK we
do not have a cardiac screening policy, and young people are dying
unnecessarily – without a test it is practically impossible to tell whether
a child has a heart condition; Neil, as noted above, was very healthy and
athletic, and there is no history of these types of death in our family.
Losing your child is the worst loss. You never think your child will die
before you and as a parent you hope to protect your child. I very much hope
we will soon implement a nationwide testing policy, especially as we
encourage youngsters to train for the 2012 Olympics.
Neil’s family
and friends have set up the Neil Desai Foundation to support CRY and other
causes dear to Neil.
