Coronavirus UK: Woman listened to mother’s dying breaths

A grieving daughter had to listen to her mother’s final breaths over the phone while playing her Tina Turner’s ‘Simply the Best’ as she died from coronavirus.

Mother-of-two Kay Elmer, 51, from the Wirral in Merseyside, died alone in intensive care after she was stricken by the deadly virus which has so far claimed nearly 5,000 lives in the UK.

Her distraught daughter Sophia Essel, 30, had to remain in the waiting room during her mother’s final moments and they could only communicate via phone, and played her the same song which was played at Kay’s mother’s funeral.

Sophia, a DJ, will now have to endure Kay being cremated without a memorial and has blasted selfish crowds for ‘taking the p***’ and flouting government lockdown rules, which she believes cost her mother her life.

She said: ‘The more people that ignore the guidance, the longer it’s going to be before I’m allowed to have a memorial for my mum. 

‘Unfortunately me and my family have had to pay for people’s mistakes of not staying indoors and regardless of what the law is saying, people need to use their common sense.

‘It’s the way I’ve lost her and I can’t help think this could have been prevented.’  

Kay, who was ‘the life and soul of the party’, went on holiday to Cape Verde once a month with her husband John, 67, but travelled to London in the weeks before she developed the deadly symptoms, where Sophia believes she became infected.

She developed a debilitating cough, which left her in bed with a fever and unable to eat and she was soon rushed into hospital – when her condition had deteriorated so quickly she was on 95 per cent oxygen.

Sophia, who works as a DJ, said: ‘It was really sad. I’m the last person she’d spoken to. My brother is in the army and he’d just been deployed the week before.

‘The next morning she called me crying because she was so scared.’

Kay lay in intensive care alone as she tried to hold out for Sophia to arrive – but by the time she got there, Kay was unconscious.

Sophia wasn’t allowed to sit beside her and hold her hand, and instead looked through a window at her mum as her organs began to shut down.

Sophia said: ‘They wouldn’t let us in because they didn’t know if it was the virus or not for a couple of days. I could only look at her through the window.

‘For five days, it was a case of calling every day and going up there to see if there was any change.

‘Her lungs were failing at one point then she picked up a bit a few days into treatment, but by the last day they called to say we needed to go in and switch the life support off.

‘Her heart was failing and her kidneys were showing signs of failure. She was on 95 per cent oxygen then, which is just too much.’

Sophia and brother Jamie, 33, rushed to the hospital and faced the heartbreaking decision to turn off her life support – knowing their stepdad John had also been admitted that day with symptoms.

Sophia couldn’t bear to watch and instead sat in a waiting room and called her mobile phone.

She sat listening to her Kay’s final breaths as they played her favourite songs, including Tina Turner’s Simply The Best – the same song Kay had chosen to say goodbye to her own mother Sylvia.

Sophia said: ‘They offered for us to go in the room in hazmat suits to say goodbye, but we wouldn’t have been protected because they are all fitted for the staff.

‘I went [to the window of her room] and I saw her. They turned her to face us and it was just too much. I fell to the floor crying.  

‘She went out to Tina Turner’s Simply the Best. It was my nan’s funeral song and it always calmed Mum down. 

‘At the end, she was really holding on herself, breathing without the machine, so I had to have a word with her and say “come on now Mum, Nan’s waiting for you”.’ 

Sophia has since paid tribute to her vivacious mum, who ‘stood out’ and ‘lived life to the full’.

But she will be forced to wait to plan Kay’s memorial service and at present, the mum-of-two will have to be cremated alone.

Sophia said: ‘She was the life and soul. She loved to sing, she sang everywhere she went and always had a crowd with her. 

‘My mum was the most incredible woman I’ve ever come across, always positive and always smiling – telling me how gorgeous I am and that I can do anything. 

‘Things are even worse without a funeral. Not only could we not hold her hand to say goodbye, we now can’t have a funeral because of the virus.

‘We’ve just got to have a memorial service at a later date.

‘I want to raise money to take her to Cape Verde because this is where she would want to be – somewhere she visited every month.’

Kay’s husband John now remains in hospital with the virus, but it is believed his condition is improving each day.

Sophia now wants to emphasise the importance of social distancing ahead of the Easter weekend.

When asked about how she believes Kay contracted Covid-19, Sophia said: ‘I’m assuming people, at some point, going out when they’ve had symptoms.

‘In Spain, they’re role models for this. They had everybody stay in. Everybody is taking the p*** a bit here.

‘I’m trying to raise awareness and encourage common sense.

‘Two days after Mum died, I went to get something to eat from the shop.

‘Everyone was stood in a crowd. A woman was there with a newborn baby. People were coughing.

‘I said ‘”look, my mum died yesterday of this. I’m not telling you this for sympathy, but it’s so easy to get this. You’re going to get this if someone has touched something here and you touch it – you could easily die from this.”

‘It’s about getting people to recognise this. The shops are letting people in… but the aisles are filling up. The social distancing isn’t enough. 

‘You don’t need three people to take a dog for a walk. I’m at the anger stage of the grieving process. I want to spread awareness.’