The sister of a motorcyclist who died in a road crash last month has praised the support he gave her when she was told her unborn child wouldn't live.
Aidan Clarkin, 43, died following a collision on the Lisnamuck Road in Tobermore last month.
His sister Louise Donnelly told Belfast Live she is raising money for the charity Air Ambulance as she gave a moving tribute to her late brother.
Read more: Tobermore crash victim named by PSNI
A motorcycling enthusiast and racing competitor, Aidan – known to friends as Aidy – had won medals in the Ulster Superbike Cup Championship and Irish Superbike Cup Championship.
Louise said he had "so many plans" including a trip to South Africa when his life was tragically cut short.
She described how, more than 20 years ago, her brother had supported her and her family when she was pregnant with a little girl who had been given an extremely difficult diagnosis by doctors.
She shared the story to encourage people to realise that tragic and difficult events can happen to anyone, emphasising the need to support the Air Ambulance.
"Don’t think this wouldn’t happen to you because it can happen, it happened to us and it happens to other people," she said.
"Years ago, I had a wee child, my first born. She was born without a sternum. Her heart formed outside her body, she had only two chambers in her heart, she had a hole in her heart and all sorts of problems. Whenever I went for a scan they told me there was no way she was going to live.
"They told me I could have an abortion, or she would die at the end of the birth. There was no way I was going to have an abortion. A hospital in London said they would take it on, Guy's and St Thomas hopsital. At that time, I was thinking ‘these things don’t happen to me, they happen to other people’.
"This was one of the rarest cases in the world. Our Aidan helped me out so much. I had to go to the Royal Hospital every two weeks to be scanned and then when it came closer to the birth I had to go to England. I was only 21 and I wasn’t working because of the stress of it all. She did live, and it was our Aidan who helped me out through it all, and who helped Mummy with the money and everything."
Her baby, a little girl named Lauren, did live for some days in the hospital before she sadly passed away - allowing brother Aidan to come and visit her "miracle" child.
Louise said her brother had a love of bikes from a young age.
"We all loved bikes, Aidan and my brothers and even me. He went into racing, at Kirkistown, Mondello and other places.
"He entered a race at Mondello on a bog-standard bike, with no sponsorship or anything, and he was against all these boys with big sponsors and big souped-up bikes. He finished on the podium at that race.
"At one point he wrecked the bike and they were going to put him off out of the race, and he worked right through the night and got that bike ready."
A former mechanic who turned his hand to electronics, Mr Clarkin ran a firm named My Car Keys NI.
"He had his own van and he would have travelled," Louise said. "A lot of people would have known him. He did travel a fair bit.
He would have taken my daughter out, and she started to learn bits and pieces of the business off him, and my nephew as well. Any time they were off school they would have been with him. My daughter used to take videos of them doing the work together. It was something she always looked forward to. He was teaching them the business."
She continued: "Aidan had so many plans. He wanted to go travelling. He wanted to go to South America. He always worked all his life, apart from his racing. He did do a tour to Switzerland with a few people. There were a lot of friends. At his funeral, there were a load of people who arrived on bikes. They went in front of the coffin and they let it rip, it was emotional."
On the decision to raise money for the charity Air Ambulance, she said: "It was actually my cousin, Linda, who mentioned to me about the air ambulance. Her husband is a biker. I was going through a bit of a bad day, and I just decided I was going to get it started with the fundraiser. I didn’t know how well it would do, which is why I only put it in with a target of £500. I was so nervous about it, that we wouldn’t get the £500."
The fundraiser has now attracted donations worth over £3,370 and can be found here.
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