Wendy Phillips

My lovely mum went to Mallorca, Spain on a seven night holiday on October 4, 2016, she was well within herself.

On 6th October pm, she had started to feel unwell and went to her room, thinking that she had an upset stomach.

I spoke with my mum in the morning on the 9th of October, she was telling me how much my girls would love the resort she was in. She said she still felt a little under the weather but as she was coming home on the 11th would wait to see her GP.

On Sunday, October 10th my brother who was on vacation with her messaged at 9am to say that he had called a GP out. By 10am my mum was being rushed to hospital in an ambulance and was subsequently put in an induced coma. Throughout the day my brother kept advising that her condition was deteriorating and my mum passed away just before midnight that night.

Absolutely heartbroken, shocked and devastated, I was also left to speak with insurers in order to have my mum repatriated home from Spain to the U.K. My poor brother was left trying to obtain death certificates and all necessary documents, with no understanding of Spanish language. At one point he was told to return to the hospital morgue on October 12th to collect my mum’s ashes, which is the way it is dealt with in Spain. He and the family just wanted her to come home. I have the most respect for my brother having to deal with the sad and sudden loss of my mum, on the morning that they should have been returning home. Having to return on an aeroplane, without my mum but with all her belongings.

Without yet having a cause of death, the insurers were pretty difficult to deal with. This took time, two weeks in fact to get my Mum repatriated back into the UK. Once back in the funeral companies morgue, all I and my sisters wanted to do was see that the bad dream we were living was real, to say our farewells to our mum. But it was too late, time had taken its toll and we were advised not to view my mum in her coffin.

It took months of not sleeping, waking in the night from the nightmare of searching for my mum, hoping it was not real.

Eventually I knew my mum was gone but she will never be forgotten in heart or mind, and neither will the seriousness of sepsis. My best friend died aged 74 of septic shock. Her death will never be known in our county for she has a Spanish death certificate. The translated death certificate lists her death due to Streptococcus pneumoniae. (Sepsis and Pneumonia) She may have disappeared on paper but her memory will live forever in mine.

Source: Rebecca Sims, daughter