‘I couldn’t save my daughter but maybe this will help save someone’s life’

A HEARTBROKEN Navan father who donated a lifesaving device to the community in memory of his daughter who died just days before her 21st birthday says he couldn't save her life but hopes this may save another.

Mick Doyle's world was turned upside down when his "best friend" daughter Kaitlyn tragically passed away in her sleep in May 2020 just a few days before she was due to celebrate her milestone birthday.

Although the grieving dad says he knew it was too late, the first responder carried out CPR on the young woman in a bid to do everything to try to save her but Kaitlyn sadly passed away leaving her family devastated.

A volunteer with the Navan unit of the Order of Malta, Mick decided to donate an AED in Kaitlyn's name to try and prevent another family from suffering the agony of losing a loved one.

"I've always wanted to do something in memory of my daughter and I thought there's no better way than to do this," said Mick. "I couldn't save my daughter but maybe this will help save someone's life."

Now responding to emergency calls in the community activated by the National Ambulance Service, it was both the perfect time and tribute to much loved Kaitlyn.

"We had a number of defibrillators that needed new batteries that cost €350 each and pads are €80 to €90 on top of that," said Mick.

"We sat and discussed replacing the AEDs but decided in the long run we would be better off buying new ones that are currently on the market and cheaper to replace the battery and the pads.

"So friends and family all contributed to fund it. Kaitlyn's name is on the AED and anyone who uses it calls it ‘Kaitlyn's AED’."

The Navan first responder describes the impact his daughter's loss has had on her family.

"She passed away ten days before her 21st birthday. I got her a holiday in Turkey for her birthday and she never got to go. Nobody wants to outlive their own children.

"Kaitlyn was very head strong, very competitive; she was funny, she loved her family, we were joined at the hip. She was such a beautiful girl inside and out. She had a gorgeous voice, she was a great footballer.

"Time doesn't heal, you just learn how to live with it, it's a new chapter in your life.

"You get triggers, it was very hard the first year, the first Father's Day, the first birthday, the first Christmas, the first Halloween because she loved Halloween. Me and her would dress up and wind-up the kids in the garden.

"I try to look at the positives rather than the negatives. I think of all of the good times and happy memories. Some days that is harder to do than others but this is my new normal."

Family and friends meant everything to the young woman according to her proud dad who said:

"She loved giving rather than receiving presents, she would spend her last penny to her brothers and sisters, she had a big massive heart. She was a big softie, she used to take on everyone's problems as her own. If she got a call in the middle of the night from a friend in trouble she would up sticks and be gone to them.

Talented footballer Kaitlyn was part of the 2016 Walterstown senior squad that claimed a league and championship double in 2016. Kaitlyn also represented Meath at underage level as Mick explains:

"Kaitlyn in primary school never played Gaelic and within six months she was on the Meath team and they won the championship that year. She went through a selection process of around 200 kids and she was shortlisted and eventually she earned herself a place on the Meath Gaelic girls' team."

Mick hopes that this new state-of-the-art piece of life saving equipment will be a vital element to the new responding initiative.

"We get a text from the National Ambulance Service to attend patients with chest pains or signs of strokes etc within the Navan, Slane, Trim area. Our Navan unit has responded to 21 calls in the last two weeks within our community.

"Everybody that's in the group gets a text from NAS control, we look at the Eircode, we see how far we are away from that person, we ring control to see how far away the ambulance is.

"If the ambulance gets there before us we wouldn't respond but if the ambulance is 40 minutes away and we are five minutes away then we respond to that call so we could be first on the scene. We attend to the patient and access them and feed back the information to the control. If the patient is stable sometimes the ambulance is diverted away to a more serious need patient."

Mick says experiencing trauma himself allows him to empathise with other people, something he brings to the job with the Order of Malta.

"We got a text recently to respond to a girl the same age as Kaitlyn and my heart went into my throat, I was praying that girl was ok and thank god she was. You feel for every parent out there who loses a child because you have experienced it yourself.

"I'm involved in critical incident assessment management in both the Order of Malta and the army and it is learning how to deal with a crisis and to talk to people afterwards and try to help them. You can’t beat life experiences, you can’t learn that out of a book. The biggest skill you can have in life is to listen to people and let them tell their story."