MUM OPENS UP ABOUT LOSS OF HER GIFTED DAUGHTER FROM VIRUS
Scholarship set up to honour student
THE grieving mother of a student who died at university in Wales says a virus or infection may have triggered the rare condition that took her life within days. Speaking in detail for the first time Natasha Price, mother of Aberystwyth University student Emily Price, said she died of vasculitis, an auto immune condition she had never heard of until her daughter was rushed to hospital.
She said the family is still struggling to come to terms with their sudden loss but has taken comfort from a scholarship launched in Emily’s name with money they have raised. “When something like this happens you think it will be horrific but it is beyond what is imaginable,” said Natasha.
“We are trying to remember the good things Emily did and make something good happen in the future for her sake because she’s not here to do it herself.”
Natasha said doctors first thought Emily had pneumonia but then diagnosed vasculitis which attacks the blood vessels and can affect any organ in the body.
Natasha drove from the family home in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire to be with Emily in Aberystwyth after she phoned to say that she was not feeling well, never expecting she would be admitted to hospital. A few days later it became clear how ill the third year maths and physics student was.
“Vasculitis is quite rare. When Emily passed away I read that only 20 in one million people will develop this illness and only in a small percentage of those is it fatal.
“There’s no definite reason for it. They think it could be caused by a virus or infection, that something triggers it. I had never heard of it. It is a nasty illness.
“Emily was still talking and eating, watching television and texting people on the Friday and suddenly she just went downhill from there.”
The gifted student, president of the university’s Physics Society, became a Liberal Democrat town councillor just a week before she died in 2017.
She was also passionate about encouraging more girls into science, technology, engineering and maths, did outreach work in local schools and was already planning post-graduate study.
“In the very early days after we lost Emily we wanted to do something that would have Emily remembered at the university because she loved it and felt it was home from home,” said Natasha.
Natasha, Emily’s father John and sisters Hannah, 26, and Katie, 20 will continue fund raising in her memory for the scholarship fund, but there is enough now to last more than 10 years, she said: “As her family, we are touched by all the donations that have made this scholarship possible. It is a testament to the impact Emily had on those she knew. Donations came from friends, family and also people that only knew Emily briefly.
“We are still processing what happened and still trying to get our heads around what happened and I am trying to think of things that give me purpose. I want people to know the scholarship is there and to apply for it.”
Aberystwyth University awarded Emily a posthumous degree and her family attended the graduation ceremony. There are memorial plaques to the former student on a bench at Aberystwyth seafront and the halls of residence where she lived. Her books have been donated to the physics department for other students to borrow.
The Emily Price Scholarship is for women studying maths or physics. For details visit www.aber.ac.uk/en/ undergrad/before-you-apply/ scholarships/emily-price