He’d done it before and woken up euphoric. This time, he didn’t.”
“We left the house as four. We came back as three.”
It was just a normal school day. Isaac rode shotgun, grabbed his favourite Doritos, and ran upstairs like he always did. A few minutes later, Lisa called him for dinner. When he didn’t answer, she assumed he was playing a prank. But when she broke down the locked bathroom door, everything changed.
Isaac had used his school tie to take part in a dangerous social media challenge — one he’d tried before and survived. This time, he didn’t.
In this devastating episode, Lisa shares the moment she fought to save her 13 year-old son’s life, performing CPR on her own child while her daughter called 999. She talks about the surreal days in hospital, watching Isaac’s body begin to shut down, and the heartbreaking decision to say goodbye surrounded by family.
At 3:41pm on the 9th of March 2022, Lisa’s world changed forever.
Now, alongside other grieving parents, she’s turning her pain into purpose, fighting to educate young people and schools about the risks of online challenges, and preserving Isaac’s legacy through awareness, love and action.
In this honest and emotional conversation between two grieving mothers, we also talk about what grief really feels like — how the silence fills your house when they’re not in it, how you become transfixed on medical equipment, and how your entire identity shifts when your child dies.
This episode also pays tribute to the support Lisa received from COSMIC (Children of St Mary’s Intensive Care). https://cosmiccharity.org.uk/
