David

He was an almost retired Finance Director, also enjoying two voluntary positions, one as a governor of a local school and the other on an interview panel for prospective magistrates. He loved his sports, football, rugby, cricket and his beloved golf. A member at a local club he played several times a week when time allowed. 

His hard work and tenacity gave him success in his profession and also gave me and Stephen a wonderful life. He was fun to be around, in his usual unassuming way – I miss that terribly. 

David developed epilepsy late in life and only had three seizures. They were known as grand mal, so large seizures and he never recovered after the third. The trauma of that evening and watching my son administer CPR will stay with me forever. A small consolation is that David knew nothing of this, he was at home, with me on his favourite bar chair with his choice of music playing. 

We were completely unaware of the dangers of epilepsy. After his second seizure he was given medication and that was it, no follow-up, no appointment at clinic, we didn’t even get a leaflet (which we would have got if he’d been referred back to neurology, but they didn’t even do that). It was treated very casually and therefore that’s how we treated it, thinking it was just one of those things. It was also a struggle to get the coroner to list epilepsy on his death certificate, even though I went through everything that happened that night and there was no other cause of death. That has been an added stress that we didn’t need whilst trying to grieve. I feel I’ve been cheated out of many more years with David. He worked hard and didn’t get to fully enjoy his retirement and he’ll never see his grandchildren grow up. I do wish I didn’t have to write David’s story but here I am. I am hoping to do some fundraising to help SUDEP Action raise awareness of the dangers of epilepsy and help them to keep supporting this community.

A much loved husband, dad and Pop, love always…

Gerri, Stephen, Sophie, Christopher and Hazel