Lisa Shaw’s husband has said telling their six-year-old son she had died was “the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do”.
BBC Radio Newcastle host Lisa was just 44 when she died in May 2021 a week after having her first Covid jab by AstraZeneca with her husband Gareth Eve now suing the company as he says he wants "answers".
In the days before her death the broadcaster suffered from severe headaches, which turned out to be a bleed on the brain.
After being admitted to hospital, she gave husband Gareth one last kiss and told him “I’m tired” before tragically passing away.
A coroner later ruled the mum-of-one died from extremely rare complications as a result of having the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.
While Lisa’s colleagues broadcast her tragic death on air, Gareth told their son Zach.
"I told him the morning after Lisa died. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. He climbed into our bed for a cuddle and I said the doctors had tried everything they could but they couldn't make her better again. He cried, but you don't know how much kids understand," Gareth told the Mail.
"I'm not religious, but I told him Lisa was in Heaven, which was a perfect place where she'd see Grandad again, and Sally - my dad's dog."
Gareth has also had to go through the painful task of clearing Lisa’s wardrobe and he tells of how “it was all wrong” as they were not clothes belong to an elderly person.
He said: "I remembered my dad doing it when my grandad died, but then they were sorting out an old man's suits and cardigans and walking sticks — the sort of things you should be dealing with in this situation. You aren't supposed to be faced with bright bikinis, yellow high heels, dresses that still have the labels on them and Kylie Minogue T-shirts."
Gareth now says he has "no option” but to sue the makers of the AstraZeneca vaccine after failing to get answers elsewhere.
He is part of a group of about 75 claimants, some of whom have lost relatives and some who survived with injuries.
Lisa had been vaccinated on April 29 and started having headaches a week later before being taken into hospital on May 13 where he was given a print out explaining what was vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia.
While Gareth said that doctors were confident that they could treat her condition she began developing speech problems such as saying the word “goggles” when talking about her son swimming.
She was found to have had a bleed on the brain and despite having surgery and then being put on a ventilator, she never recovered.
Gareth says that he is now taking action against AstraZeneca to get answers and it is not about money.
Speaking to the BBC , he said: “It’s not in my make up to turn around and say I want to sue somebody, but for almost two years we’ve tried to engage with the government and MP’s since Lisa died and not one of them had reached out or engaged with us at all.
“That’s the reason we’re left with no alternative – if the government or AstraZeneca don’t want to engage with us, then what else are we supposed to do?”
Gareth said all he wanted was “some sort of acknowledgement or recognition that these deaths have occurred”.
He continued: “We’re not crackpots or conspiracy theorists, we’re husbands and wives and family members who have lost somebody.
“These things have happened to too many people and we’re made to feel like it’s a dirty secret, that we’re talking about something we shouldn’t be talking about.”
