Mum’s heartbreak as footballer son, 17, dies from heart attack after plunging head underwater in swimming pool on dream Turkey holiday

THE heartbroken mum of a football-loving 17-year-old who died after plunging his head into a swimming pool has said she still can’t understand how her fit and healthy son is gone.

Jordan Burndred suffered a heart attack after putting his head underwater in the communal swimming pool at a resort in Marmaris, Turkey last September while playing with his then three-year-old sister Daisy.

Less than a year on his devastated mum Nicola Everill is still reeling from the promising young referee’s death and has warned other parents to be aware of Sudden Adult Death syndrome (SAD) in a bid to prevent more tragedies.

The promising footballer was enjoying a luxury 10-day holiday in Turkey with his mum, stepdad Danny, 28, and little sister Daisy, now four, when horror struck.

Jordan suffered a freak heart attack after plunging his head underwater, something Nicola has now learned is not uncommon, and his mum looked on in horror as her teenage son emerged desperately gasping for air.

Nicola told The Sun Online: “He’d been in the pool for around 10 minutes playing with his little sister and stepdad and went underwater for a couple of seconds.

“He popped up gasping for breathing and I thought he may have banged his head – I didn’t even know what had happened.”

The 38-year-old said it quickly became clear something was seriously wrong with her son and an on-site doctor began working on the youngster after dragging him out of the pool and onto the side.

Nicola said: “I really, genuinely believed he had banged his head or something – I didn’t for a second think it was as serious as it was.

“It was only when we got him out of the water panic started to kick in. I saw doctors trying to save my son’s life on the side of the pool and it hit me.”

Medics worked on Jordan for 45 minutes and eventually got a weak pulse after rushing him to a nearby private hospital.

Nicola said: “I remember shouting please don’t stop as they were working on him. It was so hot and the doctors just kept on working on him.

“I was begging them ‘please keep going’. We got to hospital and I just thought ‘I can’t believe this is happening to me’.”

Jordan was put on a life support machine after being taken to the Ahau hospital, but Nicola has since learned the brain stops functioning after a period of inactivity shorter than the time it took to resuscitate her son – leading her to believe “he was gone” from the moment he was dragged from the pool.

The Stoke City fan’s family flew over to be by his side for 10 days until Jordan tragically passed way – including Jordan’s older sister Jasmine, 19, who had not joined the family on holiday as she was starting her first year of university.

Devastated Nicola, who now does a lot of work with charity , said she initially believed Jordan would come around as he blinked when she asked him to after he was initially sedated.

She said: “They brought him round from sedation on that first day and I said Jordan if you can hear me please blink, and he did – but we never got any signs of brain function again.

“We never got any more brain activity, they sedated him again and he never, ever came back around.”

Looking back at the tragedy shocked Nicola said: “There were no pre-warning signs. I’d spoken to him that morning, we’d had a brief conversation.

“He was fit, fine and healthy. He came down to the pool after we’d had breakfast, took his top off and that was it. That was the last time I saw my son alive.”

Shockingly Jordan had been tested for any underlying heart issues just a few years before his death after his step-sister passed away aged 14 from an undiagnosed defect.

Nicola said: “When we found out we got Jordan tested, just in case but everything was ruled out. He was fit and healthy and left a perfectly normal life.”

Since working with CRY Nicola has found out 12 people die a week from little-known SAD and she has since raised tens of thousands of pounds in Jordan’s memory to set up screening days and give defibrillators to local communities.

The grieving mum says it has helped her come to terms with the loss of her son, as working in his memory and talking about him stops her from “putting Jordan in a box”.

She said: “I speak about him every day, I’m constantly saying ‘Jordan this, Jordan that’. It gives me something to focus on.

“The fact we have defibrillators in the area makes me think if anyone were to use them it would be in Jordan’s memory – we would have saved someone in Jordan’s memory.”

Nicola added: “He still feels very much present, a lot of people don’t really understand why I’m doing it but when you’ve been through what I’ve been through and what my family has been through, the things we’ve seen in front of us – you never want any family to go through that.”

Hundreds of mourners came out to say goodbye to Jordan after the local community in Stoke-on-Trent raised £20,000 to put towards his funeral.

Nicola said: “I remember being in the funeral car and saying to my mum my heart was bursting with pride to think this is my son.

“There was a huge turnout, we had parades, they shut off roads in our town. Hundreds of people came out of their houses to watch.

“Although we shouldn’t ever have been doing that, it was amazing to see the support we had.”

Nicola says a number of Jordan’s friends still come over every week to sit in their pal’s room and ask if they can help her with anything and says there are a lot of “unanswered questions” for little Daisy.

She said: “It’s so hard for them as well, he was the most well-liked and loyal person – it’s just so hard to think somebody like him could die.

“He had massive dreams, he was never one for lazing around. He had his apprenticeship and then a part-time job in the fish and chip shop.

“At weekends he had a job refereeing, he just loved his life. He’d get up and grasp it, he knew where he wanted to go and he would get there.”

Nicola added: “We went back to Turkey earlier this year to say thank you to hospital staff and Daisy was very dubious around the pool. She told me ‘don’t worry mum, I wouldn’t swallow water’. A lot of things must be playing on her mind.”

It has nearly been a year since Jordan passed away and the family celebrated his 18th birthday with 100 friends and family recently in his memory.

Nicola said: “It’s been tough, we had the inquest and then his 18th birthday, which was horrendous – I just thought ‘why couldn’t I have had one more year with him? Why couldn’t he be 18?

“It’s hard knowing that in a few weeks time it’s going to be a year since I last saw my son – that’s the hardest thing but I wanted to turn something negative into something positive.

“Jordan’s not here but I wanted to sit with his friends and let them tell me all these stories and for people to see it was his 18th birthday and all the amazing things we’ve done as a family for CRY.”

You can donate to Jordan’s fund .

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