A mother has recalled the devastating moment she found her teen daughter dead in the bath after she suffered a sudden seizure.
Faye Smith found her beloved Gabi lying face down in the water one morning as the rest of the family prepared for the start of the weekend, reports Manchester Evening News.
She had gone to have a bath after breakfast as normal when a friend, who had slept over the night before, noticed she was taking an unusually long time.
The friend alerted Faye, who immediately rushed over the door and shouted "Gabi, I need you to answer me darling," as she rattled the handle.
The mum recalls how she then screamed "If you don’t answer, I’m breaking the door down", before kicking the door in with such force that bolts were sent flying into the air.
But to her horror, Gabi was six inches below the water line of the bath and completely unresponsive.
Faye frantically called her name as she attempted to drag the 12-year-old out of the tub, and placed her on the bathroom floor.
The panicked mum then desperately tried to resuscitate her daughter’s lifeless body while her older brother Zach, who is now 26, called paramedics.
Sadly, it was very clear it was too late to save her by the time she received medical attention, as Faye told Manchester Evening News: "Their lack of haste told me everything,".
"At the hospital there was a team of around 10 medical staff who all worked on her.
"You stand there in the room watching and then, at an invisible signal, they all leave and it’s just you and the main doctor. He was the one who told me she’d gone, which I already knew. It was agony."
The coroner ruled that Gabi had drowned during the incident on March 16, 2013.
The teen had suffered a seizure which doctors say was likely caused by the trauma of losing her father two years earlier.
Faye, 56, says the death had a huge impact on Gabi. She became withdrawn and anxious and hated being away from her mum, even if it meant just going to her secondary school in Sheffield.
Tests suggested a first seizure she suffered around a year later was something called non-epileptic attack disorder (NEAD), a rare condition likely triggered by the trauma of her dad’s death.
Non-epileptic attacks happen when the brain can't handle particular thoughts, memories, emotions or sensations, according to the NHS.
They can also sometimes relate to stress or a previous experience of trauma, i.e. something outside your control which feels too hard to bear.
The devastating incident, which came after a period where Gabi appeared to be coping better, has left Faye with inevitable questions about whether there was something she could have done as a parent to save her.
“So many times I’ve thought, what if? What if I’d stopped her having baths? ", she said.
"What if I’d checked on her earlier? But she was almost 13. Doctors had said baths were okay,
“You can’t stop a child that age living her life because she once suffered one seizure.”
More tragedy came six years after Gabi’s death, as within the space of a few months her engagement came to a sudden end and her father passed away.
Determined to overcome the effects of her grief on her mental health without turning to medication, she decided to join the S40s Ramblers group, having found physical exercise improved her mood.
There was also support from Care For The Family, a British charity which helps families going through bereavements.
Faye went on to create Hope Walking, an organisation which provides walking journeys for women to give them the opportunity to reconnect with nature and the environment.
The pilgrimages across the Peak District will start with a special memorial walk in Gabi’s memory, from Ashford in the Water to Bakewell and back round the Peak District's Monsal Trail.
A favourite of Gabi’s, it was the last walk she ever did with her mum and brother just six days before she died.
The special walk is being organised with the help of the S40s Ramblers Group, which Faye joined four years ago to help her recover from a relationship breakdown.
