A grief-stricken family are crowdfunding to fly their mum’s body home to east London after she died while on holiday in Turkey.
Heather Pyke, a 62-year-old carer, was taken ill two days in to a family holiday with two daughters, a niece and a granddaughter at her hotel in Marmaris.
Nephew Dean Harding, 40, a peer mentor working at the Headway brain injury charity in Kingsland Road, Haggerston, set up a crowdfunding page to fly her home while she lay on life support, but tragically she died on Tuesday night following a second heart attack. Now the cash will go to paying her medical bills and getting her back to the UK.
“We still need to get her home for the funeral and have to raise funds as they won’t release her without the £14,000 medical bills being paid,” Dean told the Gazette. “We also need to pay for transport which could be as much as £20,000.
“The family is in shock. Her daughter, my aunt Victoria Pyke, was with her at her bedside when Heather died. She is heartbroken. We can’t believe it – we expected to get her home to be treated here.”
The family want to arrange her funeral at Cranham Crematorium in Upminster, where her brother Keith Sinclair was cremated after his murder at Bow Common in May.
Heather was born in Newcastle and came to east London with her family when she was five.
You can visit Dean’s crowdfunding page here.
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