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Heartbroken family thank SCAA for giving them a ‘chance to say goodbye’ to toddler following Highland crash

Two-year-old Iain Mackay died after a crash near Lybster in 2021. Image: Police Scotland.
Two-year-old Iain Mackay died after a crash near Lybster in 2021. Image: Police Scotland.

A grandmother is raising funds to thank medics for saving her daughter and giving her the chance to kiss her beloved grandson goodbye.

Little Iain Mackay was just weeks away from his third birthday when he was airlifted to hospital following an accident on the A99 at Occumster on August 22, 2021.

The toddler from Wick later died from his injuries while at the Sick Kids Hospital in Glasgow.

His mum, Ashlyne Mackay, was flown straight to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, before being transferred to Glasgow so she could say goodbye to her son.

While in the care of the medics, she died twice but they were able to stabilise her.

A 44-year-old woman appeared in private at Wick Sheriff Court in May 2022 charged with causing Iain’s death by careless driving. She made no plea and was released on bail.

Heartbroken grandmother Rebecca Hutson has vowed to leave a legacy for her grandson by raising funds for Scotland’s Charity Air Ambulance (SCAA) which also saved her daughter’s life.

‘I wouldn’t have got that opportunity to kiss him, to cuddle him and to read that last story’

Speaking to the Daily Record she said: “I just feel that if it hadn’t been for the air ambulance, I would have been burying two people I love, not just one.

“You don’t realise until it happens to you just how vital and how important that charity is. We recently found out that Ashlyne died twice after the crash but they saved her.

“With Iain, as a family, we wouldn’t have got the opportunity to say goodbye.

“I wouldn’t have got that opportunity to kiss him, to cuddle him and to read that last story – it was about a brave lion. We just wouldn’t have had that time with him.

“I never thought in my lifetime that I would bury my grandson and then watch my daughter lay in a hospital bed for five months followed by six months of rehabilitation.”

The 49-year-old described how the family split up and scrambled to Aberdeen and Glasgow to be at the bedsides of their loved ones.

Her husband Darren went to Aberdeen with their other daughter Ellie and son-in-law Luke Merchant to be by Ashlyne’s side, while she drove from Caithness to Glasgow to be with her superhero-mad grandson.

‘They put her bed next to his and she got to hold his hand’

She kept vigil by his bedside and after the devastating news that there wasn’t any more that could be done for the tot was delivered she asked if there was any way Ashlyne could be transferred down to say goodbye.

Mrs Hutson said: “After the consultant had spoken to us and said that there wasn’t anything else they could do for Iain, we asked the doctors in Aberdeen if Ashlyne could be transferred to Glasgow once she was stable enough.

“I wasn’t going to turn Iain’s life support off without his mum being there, she needed to say goodbye. They brought her into the room and put her bed next to his and she got to hold his hand.”

Now, Mrs Hutson is planning to do a superhero-themed skydive in memory of Iain alongside her husband and son-in-law.

On August 19, just before Iain would have turned five, the trio will dive from 10,000ft in Glenrothes dressed as superheroes to raise funds for SCAA.

With a goal of £2,500 on their JustGivingPage, they have already raised £1,725.

The nana said: “The whole reason we’re doing the skydive is because the fundraising could save another child’s life.

“I don’t want another family to go through what we have gone through and that service that saved my daughter’s life to not be available. I can just see Iain’s face watching his grandad, uncle and granny jump out of a plane dressed as Captain America, Iron Man and Spider Lady.

“He’d have been screaming ‘that’s my nana’, I just want to make him proud. I don’t mind heights but someone might have to push me out of the plane.”

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