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AnimalsTranscript
00:00He was only just 16. He turned 16 in March and died a month later.
00:06Yeah, there does need to be more focus on taking drugs and driving,
00:11because I think a lot of people think,
00:14hmm, drink driving's illegal, shouldn't do that.
00:18But I don't think they think the same about drugs,
00:21because so many people just smoke cannabis as part of their life.
00:27I bet you lots of people don't even know that it has an effect,
00:32or they just think, it doesn't affect me.
00:35But until it's too late, you don't know whether it's going to affect you,
00:40which in turn affects other people and has that whole ripple effect of devastation.
00:46I bought him his moped four days prior.
00:51I didn't want to buy him a moped, but I knew that his dad would have bought it for him,
00:57and as he'd lost his dad only four months before,
01:00he said, Mum, you know, I want a moped for my birthday.
01:02And I thought, I couldn't say no.
01:05Now, he was the kind of kid that came in on time.
01:07It was really unusual for him to come home late.
01:11I had a phone call from his girlfriend's dad,
01:16and he phoned me and he said,
01:18there's been an accident involving a bike on the ring road,
01:22and his girlfriend was tracking Daniel on a tracking system on her phone
01:27and tracked Dan to the accident location.
01:31It's a bit of a blur, you know, when something really bad happens,
01:34everything blurs into one.
01:37Somebody came down and said that somebody from the police would be down to talk to me.
01:44I saw them walking down the hill and I said, is it Dan?
01:48They said, yes.
01:50I said, is he dead?
01:53And they said, yes.
01:55And I'm just walking around.
01:58Looking back on it, it was shock.
02:00I just remember the ring road empty, flashing lights.
02:05Dan was just led on the road with a white sheet up to here,
02:09and I just touched his face.
02:11I put my hands each side of his face like this,
02:14and I held his face and I just said, Dan, what's happened?
02:18And in my mind, I was thinking, you're not there anymore, you've gone.
02:21You've gone somewhere else.
02:22But in my head, I thought he's gone to be with his dad.
02:25His dad needed him.
02:26I think he would have gone on to have a good future.
02:30I think he would have done really well.
02:32Even his headmaster at the funeral said he was going places.
02:36Dan had his whole life ahead of him.
02:38You know, I will never know what Dan's future would have been like.
02:43He will never get married.
02:45He will never have my grandchildren, his children.
02:49I will never know whether he went on to be the person
02:53that I imagined he probably would.
02:57Some days, I would say I'm completely OK.
03:03Dan is always in my mind.
03:05I think of him a lot.
03:07Other days, it's a sadness, and that sadness
03:11is sadder than any sad that you'll ever, ever feel.