On the morning of Sunday 12th
October 2008, myself and my wife Beverley were sat at home
with our morning cup of tea. Beverley had just returned from
dropping our son off to do his local paper round.
When the phone rang, Beverley answered it and
I immediately saw the colour drain from her face, she stared
at me with her eyes welling up with tears, and unable to
speak she handed me the phone. In the brief few seconds
before taking the phone from her I racked my brains for
something to prepare me for the bad news obviously coming,
but no way in my wildest dreams would I ever have imagined
how bad it was really going to be!
Our
daughter Amanda, aged 26, had recently moved to Austria with
her boyfriend. They were both huge fans of skiing, and
Austria in general, so when the opportunity came to live and
work there they both jumped at it.
The call on that Sunday morning was from
Amanda’s boyfriend in Austria, and it informed us that
Amanda was dead! She had gone to bed the night before, and
had not woken up that morning.
To say we were in shock is an understatement,
and informing Amanda’s brothers of her death was the hardest
thing I have ever had to do.
Amanda was young, fit, and full of life,
always happy and always ready to try anything new, this
could not possibly have happened to her.
As Amanda died in Austria, we had the added
difficulty of finding out exactly what had happened.
Thankfully Amanda’s boyfriend, and his family were in place
to take on the difficult task of liaising with the Austrian
authorities on our behalf and for this we are very grateful.
The post-mortem was carried out in Austria,
and a verdict of natural causes was recorded! Amanda’s heart
had stopped for no apparent reason! Unable to understand or
make sense of these findings we began looking for answers.
