A Darwen family has raised £540 for the Critical Care Unit at the Royal Preston Hospital as a thank you to its “earth angels” for outstanding care and treatment.

Dad Steven, daughter Vicky, son Neil and niece Susan Davies handed over the donation in the name of much loved and missed mum and aunt Susan Foy. Susan was a patient on the unit when she passed away, surrounded by her family, on September 17 last year.

The 61-year-old grandmother of eight had spent the day playing with her grandchildren but shortly after going up to bed, complained she couldn’t feel her neck. Steven got up to find her kneeling by the side of the bed. As he reached her, she collapsed into his arms.

Susan was taken by ambulance to the Royal Blackburn Hospital with a suspected brain haemorrhage. Staff put her in an induced coma and after a brain scan, sent her to the Royal Preston Hospital for surgery. Vicky said: “They took mum for surgery. Afterwards, she was transferred to the Critical Care Unit. They ran a lot of tests but she was brain dead so we agreed to have her life support machine turned off.

“The care and treatment mum and us as a family received from the staff, earth angels, couldn’t have been better. It was outstanding. They must have known mum wasn’t really there but they treated her with such kindness and dignity. There are no words to thank them enough and no amount of money to repay them for our gratitude.”

The family agreed that Susan, who worked at Darwen textile company Herbert Parkinson Ltd, would want to donate organs to help people needing transplants. She donated kidneys, heart valves, liver, pancreas and some tissue. Vicky said: “Mum was a wonderful lady.

“She would go out of her way to help you. In life, she would never say no to anyone and so in death, we felt she would like to continue helping others. We have received a letter from the hospital to say that three people have already benefitted from the organs mum donated, one of which had been on the transplant list for five years.”

The family raised their donation through a collection at Susan’s wake and via an online funding page. The money was received by Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Charity, a registered charity that raises funds to support the Royal Preston Hospital’s Critical Care Unit as well as other departments there and at Chorley and South Ribble Hospital.