An event which saw a mum walk in memory of her daughter who died after suffering with an epilepsy condition has been hailed a "huge success".
Lynn McGoff and 32 supporters walked from Radcliffe Skatepark to the Crown and Anchor pub in Manchester on Sunday, in aid of SUPED Action, a charity raising awareness of Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP).
Lynn’s daughter Sam died of the condition aged 19 in July 2009, six months after she was first diagnosed with epilepsy.
Before Sam had her first seizure Lynn says she had no idea her daughter could have the condition.
Lynn McGoff and her daughter Sam
Sam
Lynn said: “I just got a phone call because she’d been working in Marks and Spencer, because she was a student, then we just got a phone call to say that she had a seizure.
“And then we met them at the hospital, and I was gobsmacked because she’d never had one before.
“And then within six months she’d had six others and then the final one took her life basically.”
There are around 600,000 people in the UK with epilepsy.
SUDEP is rare, affecting one in every 1,00 people who have epilepsy condition each year.
Since Sam’s death, Lynn has raised almost £50,000 for SUDEP Action and hopes the walk will help to raise awareness of the little-known condition.
Lynn added: “We wasn’t aware that you could actually die from a seizure where everything just stops.
“You can’t bring somebody back from it, but you never hear about it.”
With her campaign, Lynn wants to raise awareness particularly among young people and their parents, saying that she hears of many university age people dying from SUDEP.
“The popular age is 19, early 20s and its students and they don’t know whether its down to stress, lack of sleep, partying all night and not sleeping, they’re not sure but it seems to be this particular age that it’s quite significant.
“We’re in a support group and the amount of girls, particularly that have gone to university, no body’s heard from them in three days and they’ve probably died three days ago, because no body was aware that this could happen."
Lynn hopes that walks and events like this one will raise awareness about epilepsy and allow people to become more comfortable talking about the condition.
Lynn added: "We had 32 walkers altogether and the day was a huge success with lots of people stopping us asking for information of what we were doing.
"We raised just over £900 which is great."
Lynn is raising money for SUDEP through the Sam Ahearn Appeal. She is accepting donation through her JustGiving page.
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