James
James was kind, loving and caring.
A postmortem revealed he died from SUDEP. I wasn't aware of SUDEP before his death. I knew there were risks from having epilepsy, but I never believed this was how he would die.
I knew there were risks from having epilepsy, but I never believed this was how he would die.
My husband James started having seizures around the age of sixteen after he was attacked and beaten up, but he didn’t let having epilepsy hold him back. He was a hard worker, and we often enjoyed holidays abroad as a family.
We met in 2002 and, after being in an abusive marriage for nearly sixteen years, I wasn’t used to being treated like I was special. James was kind, loving and caring. We married in Cyprus in 2004, and James worked away from home a lot, around the UK.
In May 2024, James was working in Portsmouth on a night shift, but he didn’t turn up for work one evening. His colleagues were concerned, so one of them went back to the hotel where they were staying and found him face down on the hotel room floor. He had suffered another seizure and had been dead for several hours as he was cold. He was 54.
A postmortem revealed he died from SUDEP. I wasn’t aware of SUDEP before his death. I knew there were risks from having epilepsy, but I never believed this was how he would die. SUDEP Action has been a great source of information and support to me. I try to raise awareness now of SUDEP in the hope that others can be helped in some way.
