My battle to ensure no one dies needlessly like my brilliant boy Dominic

He’s the neurosurgeon who saved boxer Michael Watson’s life. Now, after the freak cardiac arrest of his Cambridge graduate son, he makes this profoundly moving appeal to help save others

others, cutting his charitable teeth as a child raising money with Michael Watson for the Brain and Spine Foundation.

Dominic later ran the London

Marathon in 2014 and subsequently drove the 10,000- mile Mongol Rally in aid of the Foundation. Over the years, he raised around £50,000. Now the charity he strove for, on the basis that they help others less fortunate than himself, have lost a fundraising machine.

His mother, Geraldine, and I have lost our precious rock. His brothers, Gabriel and Benedict, have lost their best friend and hero. The 180 youngsters who crammed into our village church in

Kent for his funeral have lost a loyal inspiration.

Dominic had so much more to give. He was a scholar and polymath who loved to learn: he achieved a first in his Bachelor of Arts and Science at University College London — majoring in astrophysics, his studies covered politics, philosophy and Spanish.

He also had just completed a Masters of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge; he had taught himself history A-level and was as content reading poetry as he was a sporting biography.

And, of course, there was the sport. An endlessly energetic and gifted athlete, he had just started to row competitively.

So we owe it to Dominic — our talented, altruistic son — to make sure his death brings that awareness and change.

It was not possible to save his life. But we can, armed with the knowledge we have today, save other young lives.