A MUM from Alcester has faced her fears and thrown herself into a charity challenge marking what would have been her son’s 18th birthday.
Denise Turner has raised more than £1,800 for Molly Ollys after a 13,000 ft tandem parachute jump.
Denise’s son Sam was born with an abnormally developed brain, only detected when he stopped breathing at just 24 hours old, triggering a series of tests.
He went on to be diagnosed with several chronic conditions including severe epilepsy and quadriplegic cerebral palsy.
At one year old he registered as blind. He died in 2023 aged 16.
She said: “All we could do was to see if he hit his baby milestones.
“He was put on various medications to find which ones worked best for him.
“He developed infantile spasms at about 10 months old and had steroid injections for four weeks to stop them. He couldn’t hold his head up, sit or stand unaided.”
Denise, aged 53, was joined in the jump, at Hinton Airfield in Brackley, by her sister Ali Perrett, and stepson Jake.
She said: “This was the first time either of us had done a parachute jump.
“I wasn’t nervous until the actual day. It started to get very real in the plane. We were packed in like sardines, my parachutist was chatting away to me about what we could see on the ground and I was just thinking I want this to be over.
“The initial part of the jump, leaving the plane and the free falling, was terrifying but once the parachute comes out, it’s so quiet and you can see for miles. It was just beautiful.”
Warwick-based charity Molly Ollys stepped in to grant a wish for Sam in the form of a short break at Centerparcs in Sherwood Forest. It later funded a super blender to help liquify Sam’s foods so he could be fed through a tube.
Molly Ollys works to support children with terminal or life-limiting illnesses and their families and help with their emotional wellbeing.
Part of more than £5million raised to date has also been used to fund the first consultant in paediatric palliative medicine at Birmingham Children’s Hospital and pay for the training of a further two consultants.
Denise added: “We have a cherry tree in the front garden that we planted just after Sam passed and we decorate it with various things.
“For his birthday his nan brought a helium balloon with 18 on it which we tied to Sam’s tree.
“We also hung up pictures of Sam with his brother and sister Joseph and Eve.”
Visit justgiving.com/page/denise-turner to donate.
