It was a couple of months before I managed to speak to Kelly. I had asked, but perhaps she did not want to talk to me or anyone else so soon. But a couple of months later, after she had been on holiday, she felt ready to re-live that fateful morning.
Kelly told me, as Beatrice had, that she had driven to the house to take her mother shopping, and found her dead in her chair.
‘She was sitting quite still and peaceful, but absolutely dead – there was no mistaking that. I reckon she had been dead for quite a long time, because she was in her nightie. When she was expecting me for our weekly shop, she would always be up and dressed by about 9 o’clock. But it was 10.30 and she was still in her nightie … so I reckon she died before 9 o’clock.’
Her voice was very quiet, and it faltered several times as she spoke. She continued:
‘I didn’t know what to do … I suppose the shock made me panic. My first thought was, I must get help, so I rang 999. I spoke to a man, who said, “I have ordered the ambulance crew, and until they get there you must start resuscitation.” I said, “It’s too late, she is blue.” He said, “No, you must.” I repeated, “It’s much too late. She’s quite dead.” He ordered, “You have got to. Get your mother on to the floor, and do as I say. I’ll talk you through it, until they arrive.” I struggled to lift my mother, and told him, so he said, “You must get her off the chair and on to the floor.” I ended up pulling her. It was an awful thing to have to do.’
I gently asked, ‘Why did you do it? You don’t have to do what a voice on the telephone tells you to do.’
‘No, I know. But I suppose I was numb with shock … I don’t know …’ Her voice trailed away. ‘Then he said, “Start firm, hard pressure on her breast-bone, rhythmically, about two beats per second. I will count you through, start now – one, two, one two.” I did … and then … I heard that crack, from her ribcage.’
She couldn’t speak after that for a long time. I didn’t know what to say. I think I murmured, ‘You poor soul,’ or something like that. Eventually she was able to carry on.
‘Two men came and took over. They pushed a tube down into her windpipe and pumped in air, or perhaps it was oxygen. They cut open her nightie and wired her up to a machine, which they switched on. I couldn’t bear to see her like that, on the floor, she was so modest, her nightie pulled away, and two men over her. I tried to cover up her lower parts, so she wasn’t too exposed – it was silly, really – but I kept thinking how mortified she would have been.
‘I went and telephoned Beatrice. There was nothing I could do. The men carried on for ages. They were talking to each other and I heard the words “an atrial response”. My sister arrived, and asked them to stop, but they wouldn’t. Mum’s colour began to return. She had been very grey, but the pink colour was returning to her skin. Then the ambulance arrived. Two paramedics came in with more equipment. I don’t know what it all was. They started injecting her feet, about one injection every few minutes, and Mum was looking much better, in fact she looked quite normal; she just wasn’t breathing.
‘Beatrice was getting quite upset and begged them to stop – they said they could detect a response – she shouted that it was the oxygen making her look better, and there was no response because she was dead, couldn’t they see that? But they took no notice and carried on. They must have been at it for more than an hour, because it was getting on for 12 o’clock when they finally gave up.’
Kelly was so distressed, I felt that perhaps I had been tactless, and shouldn’t have asked her to re-live that morning. I said something to that effect – it was hard to know what to say. But she replied, ‘That’s all right – I agreed to speak to you, so I will.’
‘Next, the police arrived. The paramedics told them what they had done, and packed up. They covered my mother with a spare duvet cover on the floor while the police took a statement. Then they wanted another one from me, which they wrote down. After that, they did a full body examination of my mother. This has to be done in the event of an unexpected death, they told me, in case of foul play or homicide.
‘The policewoman phoned the undertakers, and they arrived. They asked if we wanted to say goodbye to our mother before they took the body away. We did, of course we did, but, you know, it’s not so easy when there are two police officers in the room, and pagers bleeping and voices talking, and undertakers wanting to get on with their job. So we didn’t really get to say goodbye to her. The undertaker took her, and we never saw her again.
‘She had to go for post-mortem, because it was an unexpected death. Even though Mum had a known heart condition, and had had a previous severe heart attack, a postmortem had to be done because she had not seen a doctor for about six months.’ Apparently, if you have not seen a doctor for a fortnight before death, the law is that a post mortem must be carried out to discover the cause of death. In fact, it is very rare for any sudden death at home not to be referred to the coroner for postmortem examination.
‘We were asked if we wanted to see her after the postmortem when she was back in the undertaker’s parlour. But I didn’t want to. I knew all the time I would be looking for the incision marks of what they had done to her. I saw the postmortem report – every part of her had been opened up and examined. I didn’t want to see what they had done.
‘The coroner reported the findings on autopsy:
1. Ischaemic heart disease
2. Old myocardial infarction
3. Acute myocardial ischaemia.
‘The coroner said that establishing the exact time of death was always difficult, but it could reasonably be stated that death had occurred before 9 a.m. – that was one and a half hours before I found her, and before resuscitation was started.’
We talked a little about the sadness of it all, and Kelly said:
‘I think she had a peaceful death – there was no sign of a struggle, or anything like that, and her face looked comfortable and happy, not anguished, as though she had been in pain or distress. By the time all that resuscitation was started she wouldn’t have known, or felt the pain of those electric shocks, the tube being pushed down her throat, or the injections. In spite of what they called “an atrial response” I don’t think she would have known anything about it, and felt no pain or shock.’
Then Kelly told me something that interested me greatly. She said:
‘I was talking about this with an acquaintance, and she told me that her mother had died one Christmas lunchtime, and that the family called no one. The men of the family simply carried her to her room, and laid her on her bed. They did nothing, because four years previously she had suffered a heart attack and had been successfully resuscitated. After that, she was so brain-damaged that she had to be looked after constantly. The family didn’t want it to happen a second time.’
I don’t call it ‘doing nothing’. I call it respecting the dead in an appropriate and humane way, and enabling the family to say goodbye to their mother.
I am grateful to Beatrice and her sister Kelly for their kindness in giving me this information, knowing that it was for publication. My sympathies go to them both for the troubled memories they retain. But I am sure that Kelly was right when she said that her mother died peacefully – she died quietly in her own home, in her own armchair, which is what we all hope for. It was what happened afterwards – events for which they were not responsible – that was grossly disturbing.