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This is the sad story of a family torn in two by the sudden, unexpected death of a much-loved mum, daughter, sister and partner,
on what should have been her first family holiday with her little girl.

Shannon Marie was just five months old when she lost her happy, carefree mum,
Vicky Johnson, a victim of Sudden Death Syndrome at the age of 20. They were just one day into their holiday in Whitby.

Says her mum, Jackie: “Vicky’s was a strange death because there was nothing to explain it.

“People ask, ‘How did she die?” I say of SADS, she collapsed. People can’t grasp that. We can’t explain that either. A fatal arrhymthmia of the heart. You can see in their faces they just don’t understand. ‘Oh, is it like cot death in babies?’ Well yes, it comes under the umbrella of that. It was such a sudden blow. Vicky was always so bubbly, full of energy.

She had blood pressure problems during pregnancy but she was as fit as anyone. She never complained of the signs that can sometimes present themselves – blacking out, dizziness. We had never even heard of the condition until her death.”

Experts estimate that four to eight young people die suddenly each week in the UK of cardiac abnormalities.

Sudden Death Syndrome is an umbrella term used for the many different causes of cardiac arrest in young people.

Conditions include thickening or abnormal structure of the heart muscle and irregularities of the electrical impulse that upset the natural rhythm of the heart.


Vicky died on August 31st 2003 at 7.20 pm. She collapsed shortly before, while pushing Shannon’s buggy on the way from a game of pool with her partner Richard and members of his family. She would have been 21 on February 19th. 2004

“It will be a hard date to get through,” says Jackie. “They came to our house the day before they went on holiday. Vicky was so excited. They were staying in a cottage in a cobbled street. There was talk of them going up the steps to the Abbey, but she didn’t was to go up because she had a bit of a headache. So they were going to play pool.

“As she pushed the buggy she turned to Richard to say she felt dizzy. He asked if she wanted to sit down but she said she’d be OK. Shortly afterwards she said she didn’t feel good and fell.

“Richard rang me on the mobile and said she’d fainted. An ambulance had been called; I asked if she’d been overdoing it. Then the ambulance came and I asked him to ring back. Instead I rang him to see if she had come round. He said no.

“He was very agitated, very upset. He told me they were tubing her. I thought they don’t do that if you faint. Everything was going through my head.

“I had to frantically find the number for Whitby Hospital. It was a nightmare. She must have arrived by the time I got through. I spoke to the sister. She said could we get there as soon as possible. I told her we were at least two hours away. She said Vicky had been brought in because she collapsed and they were working on her.
I was hysterical by this time. “My husband and girls had gone up to the horses to make sure they were fed. I was on my own. the Sister was called away and a nurse took the phone. I said ‘Please don’t tell me we are going to lose her.’ I was standing there screaming ‘Please fight Vicky”.

They set off, Jackie; husband David, daughters Donna and Abbie. “We didn’t know where we were going, where the hospital was. We were probably in the road for 10 minutes when my mobile rang. It was the hospital. We were asked if we could pull over, we couldn’t we were on the motorway and there was no hard shoulder.

“David was out of his mind. The doctor said ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you but we lost the fight.’ I begged him to carry on trying to resuscitate. He said he couldn’t because the length of time they’d been trying was longer than they would normally have done and there was no response, no signs from her. “I just felt numb, I screamed. I couldn’t take it in. I thought: ‘No, they haven’t got the right one, not Vicky, its someone else.’

“When we arrived at the hospital I wished we hadn’t. We were met by staff. Richard and his mum and dad were there. I thought ‘it must be Vicky otherwise why would they be crying?’ The sister took us in to see Vicky. Seeing the curtain around her was the most horrendous sight I’d ever seen because I knew what was behind there.

“She pulled the curtain back. My little girl was just lying there. It was the most horrendous, horrible feeling. I just expected her to wake up, like she was asleep

“Then the doctor came in who had tried to save her. He said they’d given her injections to thin the blood but she’d already gone into cardiac arrest when she came in. They didn’t know why she had fainted, arrested and died. That would be answered with the post mortem.

“This however was inconclusive so Vicky’s death had to go to inquest.