Two Lincolnshire daughters are searching for answers after their mum dies weeks after a holiday
Jane Pressley, 62, from Gainsborough, died just over three weeks after falling ill while on her birthday trip to Cape Verde.
The family of a Lincolnshire mum-of-two who died from a gastric illness after a holiday, are looking for answers.
It comes as 62 year old Jane Pressley, from Gainsborough, travelled to Santa Maria with her husband Michael in November last year.
It was booked as a two-week holiday to celebrate Jane’s birthday.
Two days in, Jane, who had a pre-existing condition of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease - a chronic inflammatory lung disease that causes obstructed airflow from the lungs - fell ill with gastric and flu-like symptoms including vomiting and diarrhoea.
Michael also became unwell but recovered within a week.
However, Jane’s symptoms continued.
Following the couple’s return home, Jane’s illness worsened and she was taken to hospital on Christmas Eve.
The doctors treating Jane suspected that she had a bacterial infection but less than two weeks later, on 5 January, aged 62, she died.
Following Jane’s death, her husband Michael, also 62, has been looking for answers alongside her daughter's Porcia Stow and Lucy Ambrose.
They spoke to us and shared how the loss of their mother affected them.
Porcia, 30, was pregnant with her first child when Jane passed, she says that changed her life massively:
"I had my first child without my mum being there, and it shouldn't have been like that, you know, she never got to meet her 4th grandchild - my first. It's just not fair."
"It was very difficult, I was pregnant with my first child, at the time, and so that was really hard.
"We couldn't really get to see her without PPE, which was really difficult as well. It was a really hard time for us both."
Meanwhile Lucy, 37, tells us what it was like in those final moments:
"She did sometimes look up and managed to give me a big hug and stuff, before she passed away, but then sometimes I'd walk in, and she'd ask who I was.
"Some of it was sweet, and some of it wasn't so nice to remember."
Lucy said she was going into hospital to look after her mum every day.
She said she would sleep on the floor to be by her mum, at that difficult time.
The women continued to say:
"She was a really happy person. She was like, the life of the party, you know, and she was always really happy.
"She worked in care and she was just, one of those people, where other people just enjoyed to be around."