Laura Hillier
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Whenever I think back to
Friday 20th June 2003 - which is still most days - I remember the clear blue
sky and warm sunshine, and recall thinking "how could such a tragedy strike
in a moment on such a lovely summer's day?"
Laura was 21 years and 6
months old. The detail seems important. She had just completed
her second term of a BA course in Early Childhood Studies at University
College Northampton (later to become the University of Northampton).
She loved young children, was a natural with them, and they in turn loved
her.
Everybody loved Laura.
She was lively, witty, talkative and energetic, without any streak of malice
or unkindness. Her affinity with animals was amazing to behold.
Rabbits that growled at me, rolled over when she picked them up.
To us, Laura was a joy to
know. She was changing into an attractive, confident woman, with a
wide differing circle of friends, and an important close and developing
relationship with her boyfriend. We had left behind the moods and
tempers of adolescence and reached adulthood.
Laura was good at
administrative tasks and quickly took to holiday work in my general practice
surgery. She had spent nine months working in the practice during a
gap year between school and university. |
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She was popular with all of her
work colleagues with her ability, wit, stories and reflections on life.
She had arrived before 9am on
Friday 20th June, to start work as usual, upstairs in the administration office.
We passed each other and shared a mock ignoring stare - all part of the fun.
At 10.15 I was urgently called because she had collapsed. I rushed
upstairs, thinking she might have fainted. One look at her lying on the
floor, unresponsive, blue and still, made me realise that she had suffered a
cardio-respiratory arrest.
It is a surreal nightmare, for
any medical professional, to be faced with the task of having to resuscitate
their own child. You flit between professional action and unbelieving
distress. I could only withdraw when the paramedics arrived to assist my
colleagues.
Resuscitation was stopped at
11.45 in the hospital A&E Department. Instinctively I cut off some of her
beautiful hair to keep forever. I removed her jewellery to keep close to
us, then waited for the arrival of my wife Joan and son Matthew (then aged 17).
I have so many continuing
memories of the time after Laura's death, but one I will share is that the
following day, I felt an intense need to go and bring all her personal
belongings and effects back from her house where she lived, to our home.
This was particularly true of her little car that we had bought for her a year
or two before.
And three years on? She is
always in our thoughts. Her bedroom contains all her stuff.
Photographs of her - alone, with family, and with friends - are all over the
house. Memorials to her are abundant. Rose bushes, trees,
wind-chimes, stained glass sunflowers. From our garden we can see the flag
flying on the village church tower and hear the bells on Sundays. Every
week we place flowers on her grave, bring her up to date with news and family
events, before returning to life in hand.
Tony Hillier
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