FAMILY and friends of a Bonhill teenager who died from a seizure last year are planning to give her the 21st birthday she never got to have.

Samantha Dunion was 19 when she died in June 2017 from Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP).

Her loved ones and former work colleagues have raised more than £20,000 over the past year in her memory and now plan another fund-raiser timed to mark what would have been her 21st birthday on November 5.

Mum Janette, 52, said the party would be bittersweet without their daughter and sister.

She told the Reporter: “We should be planning that ourselves and getting her stuff. She was wanting a party for her 21st. That’s things we should be doing - me, her two sisters, her dad. It’s very bittersweet.

“She wanted a party, and if Sammie was in your company, you had fun.”

Janette said the fund-raising activities offered something to focus on, but once over, there was a crash for her, husband Hugh, 55, and daughters Nicola, 16, and Claire, 29. And then they had to pick themselves up again.

She said: “I don’t think Sammie realised how much she touched people. It’s been quite humbling for us to see. She would have been blown away.”

The Titan Crane in Clydebank will be lit up orange and purple on October 23, as it was last year, as part of SUDEP Action Day.

But Janette said that despite there being more awareness locally about this type of death, there were now hundreds more families suffering like them.

She said: “The really sad thing is we are sitting a year down the line and there’s five or six hundred families around the UK in the same position as us. You can be living a very good life and it can still take you.

“It’s quite crushing.”

Samantha had gone nearly six months without a seizure before having a few while working for Santander.

The bank was praised by Janette, not only for supporting their daughter when she was alive but for raising £15,000 for Epilepsy Scotland since her death.

Emma McSorley, 21, who was best friends with Samantha since they started primary one together, is organising the party with their friend Jodie McNairn.

She said: “I plan to do something every year. It’s still quite hard to come to terms with but we know we will be able to help other people and that puts a positive side on losing Samantha.”

Emma, her sister Lauren and their friends climbed Ben Lomond last August raising £2,500 for Epilepsy Scotland. A cousin took on the “Man v Mountain” challenge and there has been more cash raised for SUDEP Action.

The event on November 3 in the Dumbarton Masonic Hall will include a raffle with donations from Arnold Clark, Rangers and more. And a couple of Samantha’s friends will be singing to honour her own performing skills.

What would Samantha make of all this? Emma said: “She would be ecstatic. We hope she is really chuffed but she would be saying we were daft. She would be laughing.”