A popular Angus woman’s devastated family say they are taking some comfort from knowing her organs will give new life to others following their own tragic loss.
Devoted wife and mum Dawn Coverdale died in Ninewells Hospital just hours after the Forfar 51-year-old suffered a brain aneurysm. Dawn took ill while helping with her elderly mother’s laundry at Kirkrigg’s Court in the town, a short distance from the Mount Feredith home she and husband, Alan, had shared for more than 20 years.
Alan was summoned by staff at the sheltered housing complex’s Edinburgh switchboard, as Dawn had pulled the emergency cord in the laundry room.
”She had complained of a headache mid-morning, but Dawn being Dawn she just wanted to get on with things and later said it was easing up,” said Alan (62).
Sadly, despite being rushed to Ninewells, Dawn did not survive the brain injury.
Alan and the couple’s 24-year-old son Ross agreed to donate Dawn’s organs, with the tragedy leading to a chance of new life for people both north and south of the border, and possibly more in years to come after valves from her heart were also taken for future life-saving use.
”It was something that Ross and I discussed when it became obvious that Dawn was not going to survive,” said Alan. ”One of her kidneys went south of the border, but the other kidney and her pancreas has stayed in Scotland to go to someone on dialysis and with severe diabetes. That was a condition that her dad had, so we’re very pleased that her organs will benefit someone who is going through that sort of thing.”
Ross added: ”If an organ donation could have saved her we would have wanted that for her, and we are convinced she would have wanted her organs to go to someone if there was a chance it could save their life.”
Born in the town as the eldest of six in the well-known family of Morrice and Margaret Diplexcito, Dawn was educated at Langlands and Forfar Academy before embarking on a career in the hotel trade, firstly in the then Benholm Hotel on the town’s Glamis Road.
She then moved to the Royal Hotel, rising from receptionist to manager in the town centre establishment before taking up a post at Lunan Bay Hotel. It was there that she met offshore production technician Alan while he was on a course in Angus and the romance which blossomed between the pair was sealed almost exactly two years to the day from their first meeting when the couple married in November 1987 at Haymarket registry office in Edinburgh.
After a spell south of the border near Middlesborough, they moved back to Forfar in August 1988 to the home at Mount Feredith they have lived in ever since.
Dawn had another hotel stint at the Stakis City Mills in Perth before joining Lunn Poly travel agents in Castle Street, Forfar.
She was also a highly successful Virgin Vie saleswoman, returning to the travel trade as a part-time member of the Thomson team at her former place of work.
”We were well travelled as a family and Dawn loved her job and got great satisfaction from the fact that people would come in to her to book their holiday,” added Alan.
Her award-winning sales talents led to a trip to a Brighton event earlier this year and only this week Dawn was scheduled to have been bound for Cape Verde for an educational trip with the travel company.
Her funeral service takes place in Forfar’s East and Old Parish Church on Friday at 11.30pm, thereafter to Parkgrove crematorium. Donations at the service are to go to charity Lippen Care to support the work of the Strathmore Hospice at Whitehills in Forfar.