The 10-year-old was finally tall enough to go on the park’s biggest slide for the first time and, as she prepared to “drop” down the 83-metre-long chute, she could barely contain her excitement,But tragically, this excitement would prove deadly, throwing the youngster’s heart into an abnormal rhythm as she plunged down the four-storey tube, and sending her into a cardiac arrest.London, pictured swimming, suffered a cardiac arrest as she flew down the slide.
Now, her grieving mum, Tina, has spoken out about her daughter’s death in February 2018 in a bid to raise awareness of ‘hidden’ heart conditions and the importance of using defibrillators — something that could have saved her life. The mum has also shared a video that the youngster took just 45 minutes before she went on the slide, while standing in Splash Village’s car park with her big sister, Eden.
She had waited two years to go on its biggest slide – which has a 122cm minimum height and has been described as ‘the most frightening experience ever’ by adults – due to her size.To go on the slide, visitors have to step into a small, pink capsule, before its see-through door closes on them and a voice booms out ‘three, two, one’.
The youngster was taken from the Frankenmuth-based park to Covenant HealthCare in Saginaw, before being airlifted to the University of Michigan’s children’s hospital.“My husband and I took turns to stay,” Tina explained.She adds: “The one night we both came home – I was just wanting to take a shower and come back – I got a phone call from my dad who was with her. She’d gone into cardiac arrest again.
London passed away on February 27 and was laid to rest on March 3 in her special daddy-daughter dance dress, with thousands of people turning up to say goodbye.
💔🙏
An absolute tragedy