When he failed to get up for work in the morning Sue knocked on his door expecting him to have overslept but when he failed to respond she suspected something may not be right. She entered his room, Dan was lying on his side with his head resting on his hands just as if he were still asleep but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. He was unresponsive to Sue calling his name or shaking him by the shoulder. She called the emergency services who told her to perform CPR and that the first responders were on their way. Sue was a first aider at the place she worked so she had been trained to administer CPR, she fought with everything she had to bring her son back. When the paramedic arrived he went into Dan’s room but came out shortly after to say that there was nothing he could do – Dan was dead.

Dan's post mortem returned Sudden Adult Death Syndrome (SADS) as the cause of death.  All his major organs were perfectly normal including his heart even though it had stopped.  There were no warning signs, no chest pains, no headaches, no lack of breath or anything else to indicate that he was going to lose his life so suddenly. He was a very fit young man, he was a postman so he was walking 5 miles per day. At weekends he played football, (something he’d done since he was 10 years old) and was a regular at the local gym during the week. The outdoor life suited him and he was at his happiest when he was doing sport be it golf, football or snowboarding in the alps with his friends. He was a happy young man, something which gets repeated time and time again on the “remembering Dan” page of this website.