Joanne: A Mother’s Story
“As a parent, you never think it is going to happen to your own child. But what happened to us shows it can.”
Mum Joanne Good lost her 16-year-old daughter Megan on 1 January 2014. Megan passed away in her sleep from pulmonary aspiration after drinking alcohol at a friend’s New Year’s Eve party.
Joanne is sharing Megan’s story in the hope that it will save another parent from having to go through what she’s been through.
On the evening she passed away, Megan drank 1.5 litres of white cider, which is half of one of the 3-litre bottles in which high strength cider is typically sold. She arrived home in a taxi and was still chatting and texting her friends when she went to bed. However, when Joanne went into her room the next day, her whole world was turned upside down.
She said: “I went into Megan’s room that morning. She just looked like she was asleep but I touched her and she was cold. We called the ambulance straight away but when they got to us they told us it was too late and that we had already lost my beautiful girl. I laid with her for as long as I could. The shock for the whole family was huge and it still is.”
Megan died in her sleep in the early hours of New Year’s Day, from pulmonary aspiration, or ‘dry drowning’, where the contents of her stomach had emptied into her lungs. The coroner’s report ruled that tragically the alcohol in her system had prevented the normal preventative gag reflex from happening.
Joanne from North Tyneside continues: “I thought that we had done everything we possibly could to look after her that night. Cheap, strong alcohol appeals to the young and vulnerable because it can be bought for pocket money prices, and many people just aren’t aware of the short and longer term risks. But alcohol is a problem across society – health, crime, accidents – there needs to be more of a focus on preventing harm.
Since Megan passed away, Joanne has now used her grief and own experiences to work with young people struggling with alcohol and substance misuse.
But she is still concerned too many lives are still being impacted by alcohol.
“As a parent, you never think it is going to happen to your own child. But what happened to us shows it can. Every week thousands of children and young people nationally are seeing the harm from alcohol – from feeling ill, harming their mental health through to accidents or violence and worsening all the other risks they face.”
