What happened?
Mar 8th, 2008 by Jimmy
Quite a few people have been asking what exactly happened, so I thought it was about time that I wrote a rough description of the events leading up to Andrews Death.
If anyone feels like correcting me on some of the events I won’t mind. Its been pushed to the very darkest corner of my mind and I try not to think about it all these days, so the details might well be a little shady. I’m also not going to go into too much medical detail as I think it isn’t relevant here.
The Accident: It was October 4th 2003, Andy had just started university at De Montfort university Leicester (DMU). He was doing a business and computing degree and had just moved into a brand new, very modern, halls of residence.
DMU give a freshers fortnight these days and Andy had just enjoyed his first week of much drinking, as you do as a “fresher”. He invited a few mates up from Portsmouth for a weekend and they went out to sample what being a fresher is all about! After going out for a night they went to visit a few mates at another halls of residence who lived up on the 3rd floor.
These halls were much older and had a square balcony for every floor looking down on each other into the entrance area.
Andy fell from the 3rd floor balcony to the bottom. He was conscious when his friends found him, but the Ambulance sedated him to stop the pain when they arrived. He had broken his jaw, cheek and elbow.
He was taken to Leicester Royal Infirmary where he stayed in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit), where he remained sedated by the doctors. It took him 2 weeks to wake up, mainly due to the doctors thinking he was in too much trauma to awaken. When he eventually awoke, he was still himself and things began to look positive again. He was moved out of ICU and moved to a normal ward.
Aftermath: After Andy started his recovery many of us returned to our normal lives, most of us expecting for the worst to be over. However after moving out of ICU he began to get weaker and the standard of heath care was much lower. His bandages were rarely changed and he found it difficult to eat. He continued to deteriorate despite my mothers constant questioning of the doctors who seemed reluctant to notice any change. The last time I saw him he was Ethiopian style thin and very weak. I still blindly trusted the medical profession to do the best for him and reassured my mother that everything will be OK as he was in good hands. He had been constantly complaining of worsening headaches, which were dismissed as side affects the pain killers he was receiving for his injuries.
On November 16th; He was found by the medical staff having suffered a cardiac arrest, resuscitated on put back on life support in ICU. He was pronounced braindead on the 17th and his life support was switched off. His heart finally stopped at around 12:06pm.
He was 19.
The postmortem showed Andrew had died from Meningitis, which had contracted in the hospital.
His funeral was held on the his birthday, November 30th, St Andrews day. He would have been 20.
Andrews ashes are awaiting a formal resting place. We hope to finally lay him to rest in Anne’s Hill cemetery where he used to hang out with his mates. Which we thought would be fitting.