... and what would she tell the family of this student, 24, who died after a cocaine binge?
DISTURBING pictures of a promising student dying in hospital from a lethal cocktail of drugs have been shared as a warning by her sister.
Lucy White, 24, was killed when a toxic mix of cocaine and powerful prescription drugs caused a seizure that starved her brain of oxygen for more than 40 minutes.
She had been achieving top marks in her criminology degree before she started taking drugs in May last year. Miss White’s family said her life rapidly span out of control due to peer pressure, anxiety and loneliness. Her drug problems led her to drop out of university in January.
Miss White, from Bristol, had started to turn her life around by getting a new job in security at a nightclub, and by volunteering with a drugs charity in the city.
But two weeks ago she collapsed suddenly at home while her boyfriend Ian O’Donoghue was cooking. An ambulance was called and Miss White was taken to hospital, where doctors found she had suffered a seizure from taking cocaine and the prescription drug pregabalin. Her sister Stacey Jordan, 28, rushed to her bedside after receiving a call in the middle of the night on May 3. By the time she got there, Miss White was being kept alive by wires and tubes. Miss Jordan last week confirmed her sister had died and donated her organs.
She also shared a series of images of Miss White in her hospital bed to warn others about the dangers of drugs. The Facebook post went viral, achieving more than 200,000 likes and shares. She included pictures of a touching letter her sister wrote to her last summer, in which she thanked her for always being there for her.
Miss Jordan, who also lives in Bristol, said yesterday: ‘Anyone would say she was like a sunshine – her hair was bright blonde, and she was always smiling.
‘She used to be terrified of getting into trouble. She didn’t even drink that much.’
According to Miss Jordan, her sister fell in with a drug-taking crowd a year before her death. After she confronted Miss White about it last summer, the sisters moved in together and she helped her get clean.
But when Miss White, who had studied at the University of the West of England, found a place on her own and failed to cut off contact with the people who introduced her to drugs, she fell back into bad habits.
Miss Jordan, a security officer, added: ‘I hate what has happened so much. She was clever, and had everything going for her.’