It’s a grieving period for the family and friends of 22-Year-Old Tylor Watterson, who took her own life after being haunted by washing dead bodies at work. She was a care home worker in The Shalom Care Home in Dreghorn and the Fullarton Care Home in Irvine. Taylor was tasked with washing and cleaning up dead bodies.

It’s believed she was critically mentally affected, mainly because Taylor had some close relationships with the deceased residents.

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As a result, she was always heartbroken and depressed somehow, which further resulted in her opting out of her job and withdrawing from loved ones. Her parents, Tylor, Andi, and Lana McCleave, have since opined their daughter couldn’t erase the memory of things she had seen while on duty.

“Her job had a lot to do with her mental health,” Tylor’s mum, Lana, of Stevenston, Ayrshire, said in an interview with Daily Record.

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She added: “One day, she asked if I knew how many dead bodies she’d washed. She’d lost count. I couldn’t believe it when she said it. She was just a young girl and was having to do it regularly. Doing that over and over again and seeing residents she was close to regularly passing away was hard for her to take.” Taylor’s dad, Andi, pointed out his daughter couldn’t dissociate from it as she had told him it was two people a week that she was looking after losing.

Andi continued: “The only other line of work that would happen in at that age would be a soldier in a war zone. What sort of effect did that have on the mental health of the carers?”

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“People they had been looking after for months and years were just gone within days of each other. They had looked after these people and built up rapports with them; then they were just gone. To have a young girl sitting there telling you this was heartbreaking.” Taylor had sought her GP’s help. She has been prescribed medication, but sadly, she didn’t recover as expected. 

Since her passing, Andi and Lana have spent every spare minute fundraising for more support for grieving families.

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The pair have organized a sponsored climb of Goatfell on the Isle of Arran and a GoFundMe page to raise money in their daughter’s memory. Lana alleged they’d donated £1,200 to Beautiful Inside & Out, a mental health charity based in Kilmarnock. She also claimed her employers, Confida FM donated £1,000. Notably, the charities they donate to are those that do counseling for suicide bereaved families.

“Helping others is what’s keeping us going. We don’t want other people in this position,” Lana insisted.

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Andi also said: “We don’t want to limit the fundraising to just one charity, we want to spread it out. We need to feel as though we are helping, because that’s what’s keeping us going. It’s hard enough for us to get out of bed in the morning, but we want to dedicate as much time as we can to this and raising awareness. We will do as much as we can to stop one other family going through this, if we can help one person it’s worth it.”

He added: “When suicide happens, it’s not just the loss of that person - everybody round about is affected. There’s very little help for the individual and there’s no help for families, and that’s what we are trying to change. We need to try and get more help for people.”

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However, a spokesperson for Fullarton Care Home has released a statement for Taylor. It reads: "Everyone at Fullarton Care Home who knew Ms. Watterson when she worked here in 2019 are deeply saddened to learn of her passing. Our deepest sympathies are with her family and friends. We will remember her fondly as one of life’s natural carers, someone who easily built strong relations with the people she cared for, and who was determined to bring joy to our Residents’ lives through her kindness and compassion."