The heartbroken mum of a student who died after falling from a window at his halls of residence after taking drugs has paid tribute to her “bright, funny and kind” son. Matthew Gilbert died after falling from the sixth floor at his accommodation at Swansea University on Sunday April 14, 2024.
The 19-year-old was left fighting for his life before he passed away. Just the day before, the teenager’s mother had driven him back to the city after he spent time at home.
Reliving that 24 hour period, Mrs Gilbert told Wales Online: “It’s a three-hour drive to Swansea, so I did his food shopping with him and left him back at his room. The weather was dreadful so I got off probably earlier than I would have done. I got home and I texted him to say I’d got back and that his dad had cooked me a meal. He texted me to say: ‘Thanks again mum, I love you’. I asked him: ‘What are you doing tonight?’ And he replied ‘I’m just chilling with Luna’, who was his friend. We went to bed and on Sunday morning, Alex, his sister, was with her boyfriend, so it was just me and Alan. Alan answered the door at around 10.20am and it was the police.
“They said ‘there’s no easy way to tell you this, but Matthew fell from the sixth floor. He’s very poorly and is in surgery as we speak and we don’t know if he will pull through’. It was a massive shock. I just remember thinking: ‘He fell from the sixth floor, how did he fall from the sixth floor? And how is he still alive?’
“I called Alex and she came straight back. A neighbour took us to the University of Wales Hospital in Cardiff. When we got there, they took us into a room and explained the extent of his injuries, starting at the top and working their way down. They said he was very, very poorly and had lost both of his eyes. I remember that being just horrendous. They told us he was out of surgery, and in intensive care, and they warned us that it was a very tough place for him to be, and that he didn’t look anything like Matthew because of the extent of his injuries.
“We were told the next 48 hours would be a case of, would he survive. They didn’t think he would. Alex and I went to the intensive care unit to sit with him, and it was just incredible. There were eight people all around his bed. The first week, they hadn’t given up by any stretch, then on the Wednesday he went in for more surgery, and the next stage was going to be a tracheostomy. He was due to go in on the Friday, but when they went to move him, all of his stats went badly wrong. They left him at the weekend and decided to do it on the Monday.”
Mr Gilbert’s family went home for a change of clothes before returning, but when they returned, they said “things were just different.”
Mrs Gilbert said: “They were concerned about his brain. They did a load of scans and tests, and then on the Wednesday the consultant told us that the results were dreadful, and that if he survived, he would be in a vegetative state. They told us they were going to stop treatment, and he passed away just before midnight. We sat with him when it happened.
“People have been very kind and we’ve had a massive amount of support from family, and also friends who live locally, and all the people who knew Matthew when he was little. There was a big turnout at the funeral.
“We’re lucky that we have each other. You can’t just give up, you have to try and keep going. It affects each of you in different ways. We just have to process it individually. You’d think it would get less painful over time, but I don’t think it does.
“Obviously, we’ve just had to go through Christmas, and new year, so I understand all those first hurdles and anniversaries are hard, but I find personally that I don’t want time to pass. People are always saying ‘You’ll be glad when it’s next year and when you can put this year behind you’, but actually it’s the opposite, I’d go back to that intensive care unit in a second to be with him, and the longer time goes on, the longer its been since we had him with us.”
Matthew was brought up in Solihull, where he lived with his mum Lindsay, dad Alan, and sister Alex. He attended Knowle Primary School and Warwick School for Boys before moving to south Wales.
An inquest held into his death at Swansea’s Guildhall heard how on the day of the accident he had been in “a confused a distressed state” having taken recreational drugs and “forced the window open” at Penmaen residential block at the Singleton campus of Swansea University.
The inquest heard the student had broken the window “opening a restrictor in the process” and due to his confused state, he did not know the height of the window when he exited through it. He was rushed to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, but sadly died 11 days later on April 25, 2024.
Mr Gilbert’s medical cause of death was given as hypoxic ischaemic cerebral injury caused by multiple injuries including complex facial fractures and pulmonary contusions. Senior coroner for Swansea, Aled Gruffydd, returned a conclusion of accidental death.
Alex said: “The day after Matt died, we met up with a really lovely police officer who had been working on the case, and he was very upset about it, and he talked us through the information they had at the time, which was that Matthew had been taking mushrooms and ketamine. We had a chat about it, because I’m not that long out of university myself. He wasn’t doing anything on purpose, but he had done some things that most university students will do at some point in their time there.
“It’s so heavily normalised at university. When I think back a couple of years ago when I was at university, the society around drugs and the attitudes towards it is so relaxed. Matthew had done something on a Saturday night with mates that so many students do and think it’s fine, and had a panic attack and got disorientated. He wasn’t hurting anyone, he was having a panic attack and was freaking out. It can so easily happen, and this sort of thing happens so often. Luckily, it doesn’t always end up in the circumstances that Matthew ended up in, but it’s so easy to do.
“That’s the message we want to get across. Matthew was just like every other teenage boy at university. It could have been anyone’s son. I wish there wasn’t a societal norm around it. People think bad things only happen to people if they do too much and go too far, but Matthew only took a small dose. If you do it full stop something bad can happen to you.”
Mrs Gilbert said: “I was talking to a colleague this morning and they said, as parents, we’re somewhat naïve about all of this, it’s very different from the situation when we were students – it was cider back then I think. We weren’t exposed to the same risks. I think one of the reasons why all of our friends are so shocked, is that it could have been their son, or their daughter. It’s just very scary. We don’t want Matthew’s story to be brushed under the carpet, as we don’t want a similar thing happening to anyone else.”
Alex added: “We’ve had some chats with people at the university. I’m very keen to get involved with what can be done about it. I think a lot of the information out there at the moment is all very voluntary, not just in Swansea, but all universities – so it will be drop-in sessions and things, which is all well and good, but the people who are most at risk, i.e. the people who think its normal and fine, are going to be affected. I’m really keen, having been to university myself, to get involved and bust some of the myths that are out there. We’re also planning on going back to Matthew’s old school and we’d like to get the message out to sixth formers before they even get to university.”
Remembering her son, Mrs Gilbert said: “He was a very bright lad, and funny, and kind. One of the themes that kept coming up in his funeral was that he was very much about supporting the underdog – often to his own detriment. He always wanted to do good. It was the same at school. If he thought anyone was being cruel or behaving badly, he’d do what he could to put it right.
“In one of the last conversations I had with him, I was taking him back to Swansea after he had returned home, and he told me, mum, I don’t know if I’m cut out to be an associate or a lawyer, I’m thinking more about joining the police. He said: ‘I’d quite like to be a detective, but I don’t think I could bare putting anyone behind bars’.
“He loved Swansea. He was saying how happy he was, he loved being by the sea, and used to run along the beach. I felt really happy that he was in a safe place and loving life, cracking on with his studies. Being a boy, we didn’t get much communication out of him. I’d text him to ask ‘are you okay?’ and he’d reply ‘yes’. For me, he was just the funniest boy ever. We miss him every day.”
Alex said: “He was the funniest boy I’ve ever met in my life. He loved gaming, playing on computers with his friends, and liked the gym. One of the reasons they told us he survived ten days after the fall was because he was so built and looked after himself.
“The times when I miss him most, are either with his friends, because they’ve all got the same sense of humour, so it’s almost like being in a room full of Matts. And then there’s other times, really stupid stuff – when we had evening meals, if we’d have pasta or something, and there was cheese in the middle to put on top, he’d take all of the cheese. It was the most annoying thing on the planet, but it’s actually those weird things that remind me of him. He was funny, kind and so clever.”
They added: “We’d like to thank all the emergency services, the amazing team at University of Hospital Wales, Cardiff, who worked on Matthew for 11 days. The level of care they provide is just incredible, it’s next level, not just medical support, but the compassion they gave us, especially in his last hours. Everybody that we’ve come across in Swansea that’s just been so kind – just as an example – the reception team at the Premier Inn – who were just incredible when they heard whilst we were there. Peter Collins at the coroner’s office has also been very kind. The police have been very kind.”
Mr Gilbert’s family have set up a fundraising page to raise money for the Wales Air Ambulance. If you would like to donate towards the fund, you can do so by clicking here.
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