It’s a sound that Tammy Richardson will never forget.
She knows that her memories of the May evening when she found her 15-year-old son Sam hanging from his bedroom ceiling will always be with her.
That she screamed, and that the phone she was holding flew out of her hand.
That she ran over to try and hold him up to take the weight off his neck.
That she grabbed a butcher’s knife and hacked away at the noose until it finally gave way.
But it was the sound, the sickening thud, of Sam hitting the ground as his legs crumpled up beneath him that plays over and over in her head, all the time.
It was in that moment that Richardson knew that her son was gone.
The firefighters arrived first and took over CPR, and then, paramedics loaded Sam’s body into an ambulance and rushed him to the hospital.
But it was far too late.
“To this day, I can’t believe that this happened to my son,” said Richardson.