What Can Parents Take From The Beachy Head Tragedy?

The tragic case of Sam Puttick, the boy whose parents, Kazumi and Neil, jumped off Beachy Head last Monday, four days after his death from meningitis with his body in a rucksack, upset me so much that at first, I didn’t want to write about it at all. What else, I wondered, was there to say about the case except that it was a tragedy?

I’m sure anyone with an interest in current affairs knows the story. Sam was paralysed from the neck down and quadriplegic as a result of a car crash in 2005. His loving parents had no other children. They were so deeply affected by his death that, together, they took their own lives.

I have just read a very moving article on the Guardian website by Judith Cameron, whose daughter, Sophie, had similar disabilities to Sam Puttick and died three years ago. I believe that all parents of disabled children, or parents who have lost disabled children, must read her article. And finally, I have found something to say about the case that is, I think, worth sharing.

As a young disabled person, I know many young disabled people, myself included of course, who love their parents deeply. I know the strength and depth of the love that good parents have for their disabled children. I also know the strength and depth of the love that disabled children have for their parents. I can certainly tell you that if I ever die, I would never, ever, want my parents to even consider doing anything similar to what the Putticks did. I would want them to show the strength that they have shown throughout my life, and find a way to carry on without me.

Not that I don’t feel for Kazumi and Neil Puttick. Like anyone who has heard their story, I do. However, as a disabled person, I can’t help feeling for Sam, and wondering how he would have felt about his parents’ actions. I can’t help thinking that like myself and many other disabled children, he loved his parents too deeply to ever have agreed with their actions. I think that he would have wanted them to live the rest of their lives without him to the full, and to have done all the things that he himself was never able to do as a result of his disability. This is what parents of disabled children need to take from this tragedy.