When Graham Wild went on a walk near his mother’s Perth home in 2022, he was unaware a hidden gene mutation had formed a number of blood clots that would stop his heart.
He had nearly made it home when his mother Kathryn Robinson received a terrifying, single-word message from him: “HELP!”
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Mother warns of silent killer after blood clot stops teen’s heart.
Robinson immediately called her 15-year-old son who said his heart was racing, he was cold and clammy, and he couldn’t make it back to the house.
She found him sitting on the kerb near a neighbour’s house.
“We jumped in the car and raced the six-minute drive to Joondalup, to the hospital,” Robinson told 7NEWS.
“They were doing the X-ray — that’s when his heart stopped.”
Graham’s condition deteriorated and doctors suspected he might have a blood clot, but the medication they gave him to break it up came too late.
Doctors and nurses took turns performing CPR for an hour and a half.
Eventually, so much time had passed that even if Graham’s heart started beating again, he would have sustained catastrophic brain damage.
Robinson stayed by her son’s side overnight before making the devastating trip home without her son the next morning.
“We needed to come home and break the news to the other kids,” she said.
It would be seven months before Robinson would learn exactly what killed her son.
Several blood clots had reached Graham’s lungs, caused by a genetic mutation of the F5 gene which delivers instructions for making coagulation protein factor V — the condition is known as Factor V Leiden.
“Factor V Leiden … increases the possibility of blood clots, mainly in the legs and lungs,” according to the Perth Blood Institute.
Graham’s family were then tested for the gene mutation, and Robinson discovered both she and her four-year-old daughter also have the condition.
And they are not alone. Perth Blood Institute chair Professor Ross Baker told 7NEWS one in 20 Australians has the condition.
“In families, one in two people will inherit it, so it’s very common,” Baker said.
He said that is why it is important Australians with a history of thrombosis have a blood test to detect whether the hidden gene is present.
“I wish we’d known that a simple blood test could have potentially saved our son’s life,” Robinson told 7NEWS.
Symptoms on the way home for holidays
There were signs something was awry in the days before Graham died.
The science-minded teen with a love of chess, anime, ants and reptiles, had been heading home to Perth in December 2022 to spend the school holidays with Robinson after finishing the school term in Canberra, where he lived with his father while studying.
Graham experienced some trouble breathing as he disembarked from the plane but, as an asthma sufferer, he assumed it was a minor flare up and grabbed his inhaler.
The video game enthusiast also stayed up late gaming, so when he woke up late and tired the next day his fatigue was not cause for alarm.
It was that evening that Graham was unable to reach his doorstep after his walk.
The young teen loved soccer and tee-ball and had dreams of one day running an animal sanctuary. He was known to his loved ones as a mature and caring boy, and as a protector to his younger siblings.
Robinson hopes that by bringing awareness to the silent nature of the condition that killed her son, more families will test for FVL and avoid devastating loss as a result of unchecked blood clots.
— With Francesca De Nuccio