Newlywed dies on honeymoon from undetected lung cancer

A newlywed collapsed and died of undiagnosed lung cancer on his honeymoon, despite having shown no symptoms of the disease.

West Yorkshire couple Alan and Aimee Simms were enjoying a “dream holiday” on the African island of Cape Verde in May when he suddenly fell ill.

Four days into the honeymoon, Alan began complaining of fatigue. That night he woke up with violent stomach pains, vomiting and diarrhoea.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

An emergency nurse was called to the hotel, where she gave the 31-year-old anti-sickness drugs for what appeared to be a bout of food poisoning.

The next morning, with Alan increasingly weak, the couple sought help at a clinic on the island. Despite doctors’ efforts to stabilise him, within hours his condition had become critical.

“As Alan continued to deteriorate, doctors moved Aimee further away before suddenly asking her to leave the room as they began CPR,” The Sun reports. However, he could not be saved.

Aimee told the Yorkshire Evening Post that her husband’s decline was terrifyingly rapid. “In the space of 12 hours he had gone from being fine and dandy to having died,” she said.

“It was horrible. I’d been married eight days. That’s what I remember saying to everyone. How can this be happening?”

Still reeling from her new husband’s death, Aimee had to fly back to the UK alone. Alan’s body was repatriated two days later.

A postmortem was carried out in Cape Verde - and what it found astonished those who knew Alan. The results indicated that he had been suffering from lung cancer, which had spread to his liver.

Aimee said that Alan, who worked as a gardener, appeared to be fit and healthy, and that he had not complained of any of the symptoms associated with lung cancer.

“He didn’t have any coughing or breathing problems. Nothing at all,” she said.

However, Alan’s mother told the Post that she derived some “peace of mind” knowing that her son was unaware of his condition and was enjoying life to the last moment.

“He had done everything he had wanted to do,” she said. “He had fallen in love, he’d got a dog, he’d got married. Cape Verde had been his choice - his dream holiday.”