Businessman’s double tragedy as parents die within the same hour

A prominent Dundee businessman has recalled the evening both his parents died from coronavirus within the space of an hour.

Graeme Carling, who purchased the McGill building company in 2019, lost his parents Graeme and Margaret in separate Dundee hospitals on the same evening.

Mrs Carling, 65, was diagnosed with Covid-19 just after Christmas. In early January she was given just 24 hours to live but fought the disease for another fortnight.

Meanwhile her husband, 66, was admitted to Ninewells Hospital complaining of a sore head. He tested positive for coronavirus but seemed to respond well to oxygen treatment.

Two days before her death on January 19, Margaret was transferred from Ninewells to Roxburghe House at Royal Victoria Hospital. Her children Graeme and Michelle were permitted to visit.

Mr Carling said: “I took a phone call from my sister at about 6pm saying our mum was away to pass.

“I rushed there and minutes later she passed away. It was awful and sad. A month earlier my mum was fine.

“I was walking up the corridor at Roxburghe House and my phone went – Ninewells Hospital. The nurse called and asked if now was a good time. I told her my mum had just died but still wanted to hear about my dad.

“She said he was doing OK. The oxygen was working but she’d have liked more improvement.

“We hadn’t really been worried about my dad. Our attention had been on mum. He was in high dependency but able to breathe for himself.

“The nurse said ‘We’ll have to see how it goes in the next two days’. I said ‘What do you mean?’

“She said ‘He’s a bit aggressive and I don’t know if he’s getting a bit delusional. We’ve given him something to calm him down’.

“I was hearing it but not really taking that in at the time.”

Mr Carling asked his wife Leanne to go for a drive to Broughty Ferry so he could collect his thoughts.

On the way he phoned his dad’s eldest brother Bob to tell him about his mum’s death.

Then the nurse from Ninewells Hospital called again. “She was in pieces – I’d only just told her about my mum,” Mr Carling said.

“She said ‘I’m really sorry but when I went back to the ward your dad had passed away’.

“I went completely white. I just thought this can’t be happening. Then I phoned my uncle back to tell him his brother had died now.

“It was complete and utter shock and I was in shock for a couple of months.

“It was my worst nightmare and so out of the blue. They were young. They didn’t need to go yet, they didn’t have to die. But they did.”

Graeme and Margaret Carling died an hour apart.