An 'amazing' 16-year-old girl tragically died after inhaling laughing gas at a house party. Kayleigh Burns, from Halewood, collapsed just moments after she was filmed taking nitrous oxide at a party in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire on June 4.
Her sister Clare Baker said she received a text from one of the teen's friends to say she had been rushed away in ambulance. The 31-year-old then called several hospitals in the area to try and locate her sibling and find out if she was okay, the Liverpool Echo reports.
However, Merseyside Police arrived at her home later that night to tell her that Kayleigh, who was just a few weeks away from celebrating her 17th birthday, had died.
Clare, from North Liverpool, said: "My sister was only 16, almost 17, and she was the most amazing little girl ever. The bond that we had, I can't even describe.
"Kayleigh grew up and had a good childhood and she was in a loving family. As she grew older she got mixed up with the wrong sort of people.
"She was interested in make-up and fashion and wanted to travel the world. She wanted to be an air hostess or work on the cruises and her life was taken away from her."
Clare said Kayleigh moved to Coventry to live with her girlfriend, before moving to Leamington Spa. She had come to visit her family a week before her death.
People who were at the house party sent Kayleigh's family videos of the asthmatic teen inhaling nitrous oxide. Later the same night she complained of feeling "too hot" before collapsing and being taken to hospital.
Her family want to raise awareness of the dangers of nitrous oxide and are urging the government to ban the drug or add an age limit to it. Clare told The ECHO: "I will be missing a huge piece of my heart for the rest of my life now and I don't know how I'm going to go on without her. But I need to because I have kids.
"I want people to think about what they are taking before they take it because they're going to leave people behind who love them. People may think it is a laugh and a joke, but it's not, they're playing with their lives.
"I want it (nitrous oxide) to be banned. They have upped the legal age of buying it in America today to 21. I know people use it in the food industry, but I think there sound be some sort of ID card or at least an age requirement.
"I don't want this to happen to anybody else. We have lost out Kayleigh forever now."
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