Mother-of-one chokes to death after stuffing her mouth with Jaffa Cakes for a party trick
A young mother who tried to see how many Jaffa Cakes she could fit in her mouth for a party trick reportedly choked to death while performing the stunt.
Bethan Gaskin, 24, began suffocating when the snacks got lodged in her throat as she tried desperately to spit them out. Unfortunately, she blacked out and stopped breathing soon after, Daily Mail reports.
The mother-of-one was rushed to hospital after she collapsed at her Bourne, Lincolnshire residence on February 22. Gaskin, a beauty therapist, tragically died five days after she was admitted at Peterborough City Hospital.
Michele Gaskin, 52, her heartbroken adoptive mother, has now extended a warning to those attempting extreme food challenges. "I remember raising my eyebrows when Bethan started the game, thinking 'How old are you?' and telling her to spit them out," she said. "She was like a little hamster with her cheeks bulging. She danced off to the toilet to get rid of them and it was only a while later we realised she had been gone a long time."
Bethan was found slumped on the bathroom floor by a friend who went to check on her a short time later. One of her friends immediately performed CPR while her desperate mother dialed 999 and waited for the ambulance to arrive.
"In my heart, I knew we had lost her before they put her into the ambulance," Michelle said. "Too much time was passing."
Doctors realized the extent of Bethan's brain damage only five days after her admission into the hospital. On February 27, the family gathered at her bedside to bid her farewell for one last time. "She looked perfect and so beautiful. It was just like she was sleeping," a tearful Michelle recalled. "So many people have said they play a similar game with marshmallows. Even my 90-year-old aunt said she does it with Maltesers. This just shows how fragile we are."
The Gaskins also spoke of the devastating moment they had to tell their granddaughter Lili, 3, about her mother's passing. "I just told her that mummy was very sick and the doctors couldn’t make her better so she has died and we can’t see her again," the grieving mother said. "We talk about Bethan with Lili and she has asked a few times when we are going to mummy’s."
"We just tell her that mummy is an angel in heaven now," Bethan's heartbroken father Joe, 57, added. "It was the hardest thing to have to answer all those questions when we had just said goodbye."
The young mother donated one of her lungs, her heart, liver, pancreas as well as her kidneys. "At the minute, it’s too soon, but I think in time it will help us to know that Bethan saved other people," Joe, a painter and decorator, added.
Bethan was barely six months old when the Gaskins adopted her. She was hoping to pursue a career in the beauty industry after working as a carer.
"There was more make-up in her flat than anything else," her father added. "Bethan enjoyed spending time with her friends and also took part in medieval re-enactments. She was also looking forward to raising Lili and giving her all the opportunities she enjoyed herself as a child. Her life was just beginning to look up after a tough time."
A funraising page has been set up by family friend, Julie Loveridge, to help little Lili's future.
"Lili was her life and she wanted her to experience everything she had done," Michelle told of her late daughter. "Joseph worshipped his sister when they were younger and now him and Lili are very close. Bethan was only 5ft 2ins and Joseph is 6ft but she always put him in his place and now Lili does too. We were blessed to have her as long as we did."