The mum and sister of a 19-year-old who went into cardiac arrest and died after suffering an asthma attack, are calling for CPR to be taught in schools.
Delijah Roberts, from Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham, had just returned home from a trip away with his sister, 27-year-old Dellyne, when he had an asthma attack at home and went into cardiac arrest.
He was rushed to hospital, where he remained in a coma for several days before he took a turn for the worse and passed away.
Now Dellyne, along with the pair's mum Martine, are calling for CPR to be introduced into school curriculums - while efforts to save Delijah ultimately proved to be in vain, they believe others could benefit from the procedure being more widely used.
Martine desribed Delijah, her only son, as being "fit and healthy". He exercised nearly every day, she said, and had never before been hospitalised for asthma-related issues.
Prior to the fatal attack, he had been away in Rhayader, Wales, on a outdoorsy overnight trip with Dellyne.
Speaking to the Mirror, Dellyne said she had booked a lodge for the pair in Elan Valley on Valentines' Day for a treat, as they were both single at the time.
As Martine was a single mother, it had been just the three of them throughout their childhoods and Dellyne said she and Delijah were very close. Martine recalled Dellyne used to call the three of them the "three musketeers".
“He was 19, loved the gym, he was into trading and was trying to find a job," Dellyne said of her brother.
"He loved the outdoors and watching the stars, he didn’t have a girlfriend either so that’s why I booked the trip with him and me and the dog.”
“We just relaxed in the hot tub reading in the evening and went walking around during the day. There's a hike around there and that’s where we were the day before he passed away. He kept saying to me: ‘the views are amazing, I’m so glad you brought me here’.
"Then it happened the next day."
The pair had driven home from Wales and had only just walked in the door of their family home when Delijah said to Dellyne: "I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe".
While Delijah used his inhaler in an attempt to alleviate his fatal attack, it did not ease his breathing difficulties and he went into respiratory arrest then cardiac arrest.
Dellyne said she had been about to drive him to hospital when he collapsed. She subsequently called 999 and an ambulance was scrambled to the scene.
While waiting for medical help she gave him CPR but in spite of his sister's efforts, Delijah first went into respiratory arrest and then into cardiac arrest, before going into a coma.
Dellyne described the incident as being “incredibly frightening”.
“I think everybody needs to learn CPR, because I never would have thought I would have to do it on my little brother who is 19 years old," she said.
Martine said she and her daughter were "absolutely devastated".
"He was in the coma from Wednesday until the Sunday," she said.
"He was meant to be going for a stem cell test on the Monday to see if there was any brain activity. We lost my brother the previous year and we always used to say that if anything happened in that way, we wouldn’t want to come back brain damaged."
But on Sunday February 19, Delijah took a turn for the worse and passed away on the intensive care ward in Good Hope Hospital.
Martine described the staff as being “impeccable”. She never had to leave Delijah’s side and there wasn’t anything more they could have done, she said.
“They said to me that he was ‘fit and healthy’ and should have walked out of there."
The mum said Delijah wasn’t suffering from poor health prior to the weekend away. An initial post-mortem didn't reveal an explanation as to why Delijah's asthma attack had proved fatal.
However, the family expected to receive results from secondary tests of his organ tissue, which doctors had sent samples of to the lab.
Martine, an ambulance service worker, had seen the more severe impacts asthma can have on a life in her previous job as a first responder. However, she lived with her son and hadn’t thought his asthma was “that bad”.
Dellyne had set up a fundraiser in a bid to raise money for two memorial benches for her brother - one in Elan Valley and another in Sutton Coldfield, close enough for his friends to visit. At the time of writing the page had garnered a little more than £3,500 in donations.
Martine seconded Dellyne's call for CPR to be taught as part of school curriculums.
"It’s alright doing maths and English, but sometimes when you leave school, you might not use it. You never know when you’re going to need to use CPR.
“Every person should be made to learn it.”
