INTERNATIONAL ORGAN DONATION AWARENESS - UNITED KINGDOM

Friends and family gather to mark birthday of Kyle Mcfadyean

By Claire Bottomley | The York Press, UK

FAMILY and friends of a popular York teenager who died after suffering a massive stroke on Christmas Day will be remembering him on his birthday.

Kyle Mcfadyean would have turned 19 on Monday.

The former Joseph Rowntree School pupil was at the home of his girlfriend, Amy Ellerby, on the evening of Christmas Day last year when he started complaining of a sore head and could not feel anything down one side of his body.

He was taken to hospital and the doctors discovered he had suffered a massive stroke due to a blood clot in his head.

He spent four days in York Hospital’s acute stroke unit before he died.

Kyle’s mum, Valerie Gillespie, said a group of his family and friends planned to get together on his birthday and go to the Tiger Inn in Haxby, where his pals had put a plaque up in his memory.

“They all used to go there and wanted to do something to mark the occasion and remember everything we loved about Kyle,” she said.

In his home town of Paisley, where Kyle’s dad, Mark Mcfadyean, lives, he and 11 other friends and relatives took part in the Paisley 10k in memory of the youngster.

Kyle lived with Mrs Gillespie, her partner, Dave Dallin, and Kyle’s younger brother, Cole Mcfadyean, in Oaken Grove, Haxby, and worked as a catering assistant at the Red Lodge care home in New Earswick.

He had just been accepted into the RAF after passing his exams and was due to undergo extensive training.

He had spent Christmas Day with his family, and was apparently fit and healthy before he suffered the stroke that evening while visiting Amy.

Mrs Gillespie said several of Kyle’s organs been donated for transplants, and that it was what her son would have wanted.

“I didn’t hesitate about that and I would encourage anyone to opt for organ donation,” she said.

She said she supported The Press’s Lifesavers campaign, which aims to raise awareness of organ donation and encourage people to discuss it with their loved ones, and to recruit 20,000 new donors in our region by the end of 2010.