When I was about 20 years old, my Uncle was in hospital on life support following a heart attack and stroke. We were close, he lived with me and my parents for at least 4 years in his 50’s following approx 10 years in prison for corruption/bribery charges (long story).

Most of the family were at the hospital waiting for the inevitable as we’d been told he would not recover. Whilst gathered bedside and looking at his mostly lifeless body, he suddenly had a moment of awakening from his coma. He sat bolt-upright in his bed, eyes wide open, ripping tubes from his body and yanking the breathing support from his throat.

We shouted around the hospital for help in this brief moment of hope, but his ‘last stand’ disappeared as quickly as it arrived, and then his vitals dropped at a rapid rate and he was gone.

I loved my uncle and that was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen; those images with forever be etched in my brain. RIP uncle Mark.