Mum found dead by 5-year-old son was "broken" by COVID lockdown
A mother who was struggling with the loss of a family member and being isolated from her parents has been found dead by her five-year-old son.
Katie Simms, 32, was found by her only son Archie in their home in Kettering in the UK.
Katie's brother David said to Northants Live that she had been "struggling" after their older brother Barry Gunn died in 2015.
“Since my brother passed, she shut herself away and she ended up getting a bit of a phobia of not really going outside.
“And I think COVID-19 broke her, to be honest.”
“Back in 2015 my brother, who served in the Royal Anglians, suffered from PTSD after he returned from Sierra Leone,” said David, who is also in the army.
“What he saw out there really scarred him and he couldn’t cope with his demons.
“He was quite troubled with that; he tried to take his own life by taking an overdose, he then passed away in hospital a few months later, he’d been put on a ventilator.
“[Katie] took that quite bad; he was only 40 at the time.”
David said that Katie was struggling during the pandemic as she couldn't visit her mother.
“She couldn’t get to visit mum, because she’s got breathing difficulties, so couldn’t leave the house to visit.
“Dad’s diagnosed with bowel cancer, he’s now got a tumour so he can’t travel.
“So lockdown has basically broken us all.”
David started a GoFundMe page with any extra funds going to help Archie grow up as well as funeral costs.