A HEARTBROKEN mum has paid tribute to her teenage son who died without warning, just weeks before he was due to giver her away at her wedding. Stuart Waters-Manning always had "a smile on his face" was just 19 when he passed away in May this year, suffering a deadly seizure while studying for an exam. With his mum's nuptials set for a couple weeks later, the teen had been planning to give her away.
Stuart, from North Hykeham, Lincolnshire, was diagnosed with epilepsy and autism in 2018 when he was 13 years old. Since then, he'd suffered from occasional seizures, which tended to occur during the night. The teen hadn't had one for over a year.
But on the day of his death - May 15 - Stuart suffered a seizure that caused his heart to stop. An investigation into Stuart's death found that it was caused by Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP). SUDEP is when someone who has epilepsy dies suddenly during or following a seizure and no other cause of death can be found.
According to the charity SUDEP Action, about one in 1,000 people with epilepsy lose their lives to the rare phenomenon every year. Despite having seen many specialists about Stuart's epilepsy over the years, his mum Amanda Waters, 41, said they had never been warned about SUDEP. "It's unbelievable that nobody even let us know about it," she told Lincolnshire Live .
She now hopes to raise awareness around the condition. Stuart suffered a seizure over the Mother's Day weekend, but before that he hadn't had one in ov.