Family heartache as fit and healthy teen basketball player, 19, drops dead suddenly while cooking dinner
A FIT and healthy teenager who loved to play basketball suddenly dropped dead while cooking dinner, leaving his family heartbroken.
Micah Gillings, 19, was preparing to study business at university when he suddenly passed away in July.
Micah’s mum Natasha, 45, has opened up over his death, and has described the teen as someone who was “loved by everybody”.
The 19-year-old was reaching the end of his gap year, and was set to enrol at Manchester Metropolitan University this month.
Micah was cooking dinner when he suddenly died – an activity he had picked up in preparation for starting university.
Just an hour before he tragically passed away, he called his mum to ask about ingredients he was using to cook dinner.
He had been working at Sainsbury’s during lockdown, and was also virtually getting to know people who he would be living with at university.
Micah was also an avid basketball player, having been a part of the Cambridge Cats since he was 14, where he “showed great talent and potential right from the start.”
He also represented Cambridgeshire at a county level in the sport.
An investigation into his death remains ongoing, but at an opening of the inquest into his death, a coroner said it may have been a “natural cause death”.
The morning of his death, he had given his girlfriend the password to his phone – which allowed his family to see a “glimpse” into his social life.
His mum told Cambridgeshire Live: “We were able to get into his phone and we found a whole completely separate aspect to his social life.
“As a parent you don’t really get to see that side of your kid, and through that we realised how popular and loved by basically everybody he’d come in touch with.
“Obviously we knew that he was a happy, fun loving, caring young man, but it seems everybody he came into contact with felt the same way.
“It didn’t matter what the contact was, he was a caring, wonderful young man.”
Due to social distancing, many of Micah’s friends could not formally attend his funeral as the capacity was limited, however many still showed up to wait outside.
Micah’s flatmates at university, who had never been able to meet him, also reached out to Natasha sending their condolences.
Natasha said: “We came out the service and there were so many people there; I was just really shocked.
“People had turned up knowing they couldn’t come inside because of restrictions but they just wanted to turn up and pay their respects.”
TRAGIC DEATH
Speaking about her son’s love for basketball, she said: “He tried football, but he wasn’t very good at it. Then he tried athletics, but when he found basketball, he just loved it.
“Because he was so tall, he felt he wasn’t the odd one out and he just loved it and he was quite good at it.”
Despite her tragic loss, Natasha said she was grateful that lockdown meant she could spend more time with her son.
She said: “At first it was horrible.
“He worked and he had his social life, the hours he worked were quite late and I got up quite early for work, so we were like ships that passed in the night.
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“But my hours changed and I got to spend more time with him, he didn’t sit around doing nothing either, he used the time properly to reach out and reconnect with people.”
At the opening of the inquest into Micah’s untimely death, senior coroner for Cambridgeshire David Hemming described the death as an “absolute tragedy.”
He continued: “On the face of it, it may be a natural cause death but we’ve got to investigate if there are some surrounding issues.”