"We'd known for years": Lisa Curry finally reveals the real tragedy behind her daughter's death
Lisa Curry has finally opened up fully on the events of that tragic night when she and former partner Grant Kenny lost their eldest daughter Jaimi after a long health battle.
In a candid and revealing extract from her new biography Lisa: 60 Years of Life, Love and Loss, Curry details exactly what happened that evening.
She said on the night in September 2020, Jaimi had called her saying she was vomiting blood.
An ambulance was called and Lisa, along with her husband, Mark Tabone, rushed to Jaimi’s side. When they arrived, they were told Jaimi was in a stable condition and under sedation. But just 40 minutes later they were called back and told she was now on ventilation and her condition had become critical.
“I ran to her and called softly, “Jaimi, Jaimi, it’s Mum. Open your eyes, baby, open your eyes. Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.” But there was no response, there was just nothing. I was numb,” writes Lisa in her memoir.
She said Jaimi’s kidneys were shutting down as the doctor gave her the devastating news.
“Jaimi will die tonight,” he told Lisa.
“Hearing those words, I was sobbing. “No, no, no, I’m not ready!” Even though we’d known for years this time would come, we didn’t want it to be real,” she writes.
Jaimi died later that night, surrounded by her family.
Then on Tuesday in a heartbreaking interview on Sunrise, Curry spoke openly to Natalie Barr and Michael Usher in more detail about the effects of the tragic loss – as well as some of the incredible positives to have emerged.
It has now emerged that Jaimi had battled an eating disorder and alcohol addiction for many years prior to her death at age 33 in 2020.
“Writing the book was really hard because I started it at a time when I didn’t even want to get out of bed,” Lisa told the Sunrise hosts.
“For the past 19 years now, even though we look like we’re having fun and we’re doing great things, in the background it was terribly hard every single day.”
In an emotional admission, Lisa said that Jaimi had hoped to tell her story in a book of her own “to help others in her position”, but sadly she did not get the chance.
“We had lined up a friend of mine who is a journalist to sit with Jaimi to write the book, but we left it too late,” the mother of three said.
“We always thought we had time, but we didn’t.
“In my small way I hope that I’m helping people and even, you know, I haven’t been able to talk about it, but I can write about it,” Lisa said through tears.
“I had a message from a lady on social media and she said she that she spoke to her daughter about what happened to Jaimi and her daughter is now on the road to recovery,” she said.
“She said ‘it won’t mend your heart or bring Jaimi back, but it’s helped save another child’.”
Lisa said revealed that being open and honest about her daughter’s death seemed the best course “so there’s no stigma about it and people can feel OK about talking about their feelings and their mental health and not coping”.
“Hopefully we can start to find the red flags a lot earlier,” she concluded.
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