On May 23rd 2010 we very suddenly lost our cousin Peter Elliott. Peter was a healthy 21 year old, even though he had cerebral palsy. He never let this hold him back or get in his way and it did not contribute to his death.
Peter’s life was short but he packed in a lot of what he wanted to do – especially with his love for music, by forever going to concerts and festivals.
None of our family had ever heard of Sudden Adult Death Syndrome prior to Peter’s death. Peter had absolutely no symptoms, the doctors explained it was “like a light going out” – which to the family is the only comfort to his death: that he felt nothing.
After the sudden loss of Peter we felt we had to do something to raise awareness and also in the memory of our truly inspirational cousin. My sister Courtney and I decided to do The Loch Ness 10k to raise some money, and all in we raised £1100.00!
We hope in the future the money raised can help prevent other families from going through the loss and devastation our family have felt. The Loch Ness 10k will now hopefully be a yearly thing for us to do because it keeps his memory alive and keeps our family together.
Losing Peter has left an enormous hole in our family that nothing will ever replace, but if we can just raise awareness and money for research maybe one day we could understand more about his condition.
Jodie Lynch
