Mum-of-four’s death leaves ‘huge hole’ in family after fatal blood clot she thought was anxiety

Suzanne Stoakes 50, from Port Talbot in Wales, thought her symptoms were caused by anxiety, but the next morning two of her children found she had stopped breathing, Wales Online reports.

Oldest son Ashlee Roberts, 28, said Suzanne's death had left a "huge hole" in their family, as well as within the local community.

Ashlee said: "On Friday night, 7 May she rang me and said she wasn't feeling too good and that she was finding it difficult to catch her breath and said she was feeling anxious. She wasn't in pain and sounded like she was breathing fine.”

He added: “She went to bed that night and then in the morning, my younger sister called and said she needed me to come down and look at mam because she wasn't well. She was laying in bed and again said she was struggling to catch her breath.

"We called NHS direct and she spoke to a doctor on the phone for a while and he said that it might be anxiety and that they would put her on medication to help with that. She wasn't in pain and had no other difficulties."

However, shortly after leaving, Ashlee received a phone call from his sister telling him their mum “had stopped breathing and that an ambulance was on its way and that I needed to go back.”

Paramedics later announced that Suzanne had passed away, and a post-mortem found that she had “deep vein thrombosis which caused a blood clot in her lung some time over that night.

‘We want to get my siblings back into her house’

Ashlee said his siblings, Kieran, 22, and Carys, 19, are staying with him for the time being but they are currently raising money to try and help them move back into the house they shared with their mother.

Suzanne rented her home and was in the middle of landscaping the garden and making some interior improvements at the time of her death.

The family hope that with the landlord’s blessing they can continue this project and turn it into the house Suzanne always dreamed of.

Ashlee said: "We want to get my siblings back into her house because my brother and sister live there and they miss their home comforts.”

Money raised would also go towards Suzanne's funeral costs, and the family hopes to do a memorial, such as planting a tree in one of her favourite locations.