Tributes have been paid to a ‘brilliant' mum who sadly lost her battle against her demons after she was found dead at home.
The family of Samantha Gawthorpe thought she was on the road to recovery and in a good place when she was found unresponsive in the bedroom of her mum’s home on April 14. Despite desperate attempts by her partner and paramedics, Samantha, known as Sammy, died three days later at Hull Royal Infirmary.
An inquest into her death took place on Friday in Hull with assistant coroner Lorraine Harris concluding her death was ‘drug related’. Her family spoke afterwards and paid tribute to Sammy who was just 42 when she died, HullLive reports.
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One family member said: “She was loved by all her family and especially her two sons. She was a brilliant mum and she could not walk down the street without saying hello to someone.
“She battled much of her life to overcome her problems. She was just so funny and she would enter a pub and take it over.
“Sammy was just friendly to everyone and she was very family-orientated. I will miss so much about her but maybe not all the game requests I used to get from her on Facebook!”
Sammy died after taking a large number of different drugs, including morphine, cocaine and painkillers, although none were recorded individually in the lethal range. The cause of death was hypoxia to the brain as the result of a drug overdose.
In a statement, her sister described how Sammy was born in Hull to an “extremely close and loving family”. She added: “Sammy always had a happy outlook on life and a smile on her face. She had time for everyone and no one had a bad word to say about her. She was loved by everyone who knew her.”
Despite her positive personality, Sammy became involved in drugs at some point in her life, HullLive reports. This often left her homeless and she was later diagnosed as having bipolar disorder. But in the months before her death, Sammy seemed to be doing well with her partner Nick Edgar.
Her sister said in her statement: “Sammy had met Nick about a year before and they seemed happy. We understood she was clean. She looked well and seemed settled.
“But she was always on and off with drugs and could never seem to quite break the cycle. She was bipolar so was always either really happy or down.”
“Sammy overdosed on drugs in 2019 and we thought we would lose her. But recently she really seemed content within herself but she always battled those demons. She had episodes of being extremely low. It is heartbreaking for us as we believed everything was okay.”
Sammy spoke to Hull Live just before Christmas last year when she explained she had been homeless on and off for around six years after being forced out of her last home. She spoke while waiting with other homeless people in Waltham Street outside Jubilee Central church which offers hot drinks and showers in the morning.
At the time she said: "My two sons are 26 and 17, they're my world. But I haven't got the money to buy my youngest son a Christmas present this year. One lives with his dad and another with his granddad, I've been totally depressed not being able to see them.
"I first became homeless after I went into hospital after an accident, I was staying with my mum at the time. My accident threw me under a bus, I turned up at the flat after I left hospital and all my stuff was gone.
"I managed to get a temporary home but it was awful, it was the kind of place where you had to wipe your feet on the way out. I'm staying at the Salvation Army William Booth house at the moment, it's brilliant there.
"There's nothing we can do so usually we have to walk around hungry and with no money for 12 hours. We've got a friend who has a tent, so today we're going to pitch that up and stay in it to keep warm because there's nothing else we can do.”
Just a week after the interview Sammy moved back in with her mum. There seemed to be no issues and her family thought Sammy and Nick were settling well.
Mrs Harris concluded Sammy’s death was ‘drug-related’ and felt the long spells of abstinence from drugs may have reduced her tolerance which could have explained the tragic overdose.
Speaking to Sammy’s family present at the inquest, Mrs Harris said: “From what I have heard I see the personality Sammy was and what she meant to people.
“We shouldn’t just see her as another drug-related death. I see the joy and love she brought to people.”
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