The boys went to the school field where they played football
every night - somewhere safe to play. It had got to 10pm and was just
starting to get dark when I said to my husband, “Josh should be in by now,
something's wrong”.
We both went out to look for him; my husband went to Josh’s
friend’s house to see if he was there. He spoke to Jacob’s mum and she rang
Jacob who answered his phone in a panic. She told him to calm down and he
eventually managed to say that Josh was in an ambulance and that he’d had
some kind of arrest.
Richard ran to the school field to see what was happening
while I ran back to get the car to drive round to the school. When I got
there I was met by the ambulance ready to leave with my son and husband on
board.
Jacob’s mum drove to the school and she offered to drive me
to the hospital 20 miles away as I was in no fit state to drive myself. I
took my car back home and we went straight to the hospital in Hull. It was
during the journey that I found out from Jacob that Josh had been playing
football; they were all ready to come home when Josh complained of feeling
dizzy and tired so he sat down and then laid down while his friends carried
on playing football. This was nothing unusual as they often played football
for hours and all laid down if tired.
Jacob and James decided that they better head home as it was
getting late, but when they went to Josh they realised that something was
seriously wrong, as he had gone blue. Jacob started CPR and showed James
what to do while he called an ambulance and went to meet them.
The boys performed CPR on Josh until the paramedics came.
What amazing 14 year old boys, fighting to save their friend’s life, such
brave boys to do that for their friend.
On the way to hospital it still didn’t sink in that something
serious had happened even with Jacob in the back talking me through it. We
expected Josh to be sat up talking when we got to hospital as you would
because the paramedics had got to him so we thought he would be OK.
When I reached hospital I was met by a nurse waiting outside,
she grabbed my arm and led me through A&E to the children’s A&E. It
was there that my husband Richard came walking out; it was then I knew we
had lost our beautiful son Josh. Our world ended that night, how could such
a fit boy die at such a young age? It was so unfair.
I went in to see Josh and he looked peaceful, but I kept
expecting him to wake up. We stayed with him for a while but then left him
at the hospital to travel the 20 miles home back to Hornsea, a small seaside
town. We left Josh's sister, Jasmine, in bed as it was early hours
when we got back from hospital. We woke her up in the morning to tell her
- we had to tell his 9 year old sister that she had lost her big brother,
the person she looked up to. That was the worst thing we have ever done.
Josh was such a selfless, happy, fun-loving, loveable lad who
loved life and football, his family and friends. Josh’s biggest love was
our local football team Hull City. Josh would go to every home game and
some away games; he had supported the team for years. Josh had a motto and
always said “Hull City Til I Die” which unfortunately came true all too
soon. When Josh wasn’t at football he would either be out playing it, or on
his PS3 playing it with his friends, or on Facebook.
Josh was a popular lad and had a lot of friends. The
next day I had to ring the school and inform them of what had happened. That
day affected many as they had lost a special friend. His friends were
hit hard when Josh died. One of them set up an RIP page on Facebook
where we have had thousands of comforting comments which have helped us to
know how well loved our son was and how much he was going to be missed.
We had to wait nearly 4 weeks to finally lay Josh to rest as
his heart had to be sent off to London to have further tests as the first
post mortem showed nothing wrong with his heart. We had an agonising
wait before we got the cause of death. They put it down to SADS.
Josh’s heart was perfectly healthy, he was a fit and healthy lad.
This is what we struggle with - the fact that a healthy boy
could be taken away from us when he had nothing wrong with him. Even now, 12
weeks on, we are still trying to comprehend WHY!!! Life is so cruel.
We had the funeral and hundreds of friends and family and
people we didn’t know attended. We raised nearly £1300 at the funeral
collection for CRY.
Since Josh’s death we have thrown ourselves into fundraising
for CRY and set a target to raise £10,000. At 12 weeks on, when we get all
of the money collected in we will have raised nearly £8,000 through various
fundraising events. Our aim is to get as many young people tested as we can
and we have booked our dates for next year for the CRY cardiac screening
unit to come to Hornsea.
We miss Josh so much but we will keep his memory alive by
raising as much money for CRY as we can. Life will never be the same but we
have to keep going for our daughter Jasmine, as she also may have something
wrong with her heart so she is being monitored closely at the moment.
Josh was so happy - he was loved and is missed by so many
people. We have had massive support from his friends, family and Facebook;
they have all been a big comfort to us.
We miss him so much; life will never be the same. There will
always be a big part of me missing as Josh was such a massive part of our
lives.
Donna Fell
