The tragic death of Ana Hick brings back painful memories for one mother.
Anne-Marie Cockburn doesn't have to imagine how the family of Ana Hick, the 18-year-old Dublin girl who died at the weekend after taking ecstasy, feels right now. She knows. Her own daughter, Martha Fernback, died in similar circumstances two years ago, having taken half a gram of white powder which turned out to be MDMA (ecstasy).
It was July 20, 2013, when an unrecognised number came up on her mobile-phone screen and a stranger urged her to get to the hospital, because her child was gravely ill.
"I watched them try to save her," she says. "They pumped her chest and drilled something into her shin, but I knew she was already dead. They elevated her arms, but I don't know why, her eyes were half open and she was way beyond the clouds and stars already."
She remembers feeling unable to breathe once they announced what she already knew. Until toxicology tests were complete, Martha was the property of the coroner. She remembers looking at coffins and thinking, what would Martha choose? And then going through her clothes, deciding what her beautiful only child would like to wear, this one last time.
And now, almost two years on, she has good days and bad days.
Today is a bad day. "It's like no other pain you can imagine," she says. "I'm grateful for the days when I can breathe a bit. Right now, my heart goes out to the Hick family. They have become new members of the bereaved parents club. That's a club nobody wants to join and, believe me, there is no waiting list. Sadly, Ana is another Martha."
Source: Celine Naughton, Irish Independent, 19/05/15
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