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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
National
Aaliyah Rugg

Final wish of mum who leaves behind three young children

The devastated family of a mum who died after collapsing in Antalya Airport said they will be "broken forever".

Melissa Kinsella was on holiday with her partner, Jay Smith, his family and their three children, Chloe, nine, Beau, four, and Romi, two when she collapsed after suffering a heart attack. Instead of flying home on May 15, the 30-year-old mum was rushed to hospital.

Doctors told her family she had swelling on her brain and heart. Melissa was flown home by air ambulance and was blue lighted to Arrowe Park Hospital on Wednesday, May 24, but two days later, on May 26, the family received the devastating news that she was clinically dead.

READ MORE: Parents of 'beautiful soul' pay tribute to mum who 'lived for her children'

Dad Steven has since said the family will be "broken forever" and they will "never be fixed". He told the ECHO: "We spent today [Wednesday] with our three beautiful granddaughters where nobody knew us to gather our thoughts, which made us realise we're broken forever.

"But with the love and the feeling we get of our Melissa shining through them, we will never be fixed, but we have the glue from them to hold us together."

Melissa Kinsella with parents Michelle and Steven (Family handout)

The 52-year-old said to Melissa, family was everything as they were all "inseparable". He added: "Llandudno was hers and her family's happy place where they would go every few weekend me and the wife would even follow up to spend the day with them too.

"She has requested her ashes to be released there. Family was everything to her and we were all inseparable and met up with our dogs for long walks in Birkenhead Park"

Melissa was brought back to the UK with no medical notes and staff at Arrowe Park had to run multiple tests to see if Melissa had any brain activity. After three hours the family were called into a room and told initial tests showed their 30-year-old daughter had no brain activity.

Melissa's mum, Michelle Heathcote, 51, and Steven, previously spoke to The ECHO to pay tribute to their "loving and smart" daughter. Michelle, who lives in Leasowe, said: "She lived for her girls, she was hard working, had a dirty laugh and she was such a good mummy. She had so much love for those girls.

"She was very hard working doing beauty and hair, she was a little whizzkid with the colours. She was so clever, she actually went to uni three times, trained to be an accountant but then got pregnant, then trained in nursing and got pregnant again before going back to beauty."

The family said they now just want to lay Melissa to rest with a funeral "fit for a princess". They have already arranged a horse and carriage and a white casket ready for when they are given the go ahead from the coroner.

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