Lucas Martin, from the Isle of Man, was known affectionately by his family as Looky. In September 2023, at just 21 years old, he tragically passed away from bacterial meningitis. His dad, Brett Martin, shares their family's story.
Lucas: A force of nature
We always described Lucas as a force of nature. He was a real go-getter, full of energy and drive from an early age. Even as a child, he had a business head - buying and selling Pokémon cards to his friends for a couple of pounds. Whatever he did, he threw himself into it completely.
As he grew, that energy was channelled into sport. He captained the Isle of Man Junior football team, his school’s rugby team and his school’s cricket team. He was a natural leader, on and off the pitch. The family joke was that we all needed to be nice to him because we’d probably end up working for him one day.
Lucas had just finished his degree in International Business Studies at Liverpool University. The summer of 2023 was incredible - he worked at my hotel, at his uncle’s car dealership (telling him how to run things) and delivered pizzas on a Tuesday night. He never stopped.
The week that everything changed
It was the start of September, and Lucas had been feeling a bit run down. He had a headache but nothing that seemed serious. We put it down to tiredness as he’d been travelling on the overnight ferry and working hard. I’d had to leave the island on the Thursday for work and my wife had fish and chips with him that night. On Friday, my wife also left the Isle of Man to help our middle son move house in Birmingham, and my eldest son, who was visiting, checked in on him. He still just seemed under the weather.
On Saturday morning, we Facetimed him. He said he felt better but was going back to sleep. No alarm bells were ringing but because none of us were home, which was really unusual, we asked a family friend to drop food off.
Three hours later, she called us. Lucas was delirious and incoherent. She put him on the phone, and all we could hear was moaning. We told her to call 999 immediately. I phoned my brother to get over to our house and we rushed back up the motorway from Birmingham, to get a flight home.
When my brother arrived, Lucas was confused but still able to walk. Paramedics suspected meningitis and gave him an injection but when he got to the hospital, everything changed. He went from being aware and talking to attacking people in confusion. They sedated him and moved him to the ICU (intensive care unit). When we arrived that night, they told us it was serious but not critical.
We sat with him for hours. Then, in the morning, they told us his pupils were fixed and dilated. Scans showed no chance of survival. They kept him on life support, but by Sunday, they confirmed there was no hope. On Monday, they repeated the scans, giving us a glimmer of hope - only to take it away again.
Lucas had signed up as an organ donor and he’d encouraged his friends to do the same, so we honoured that. They took his liver and kidneys.
Lucas had no rash, no aversion to light - none of the classic symptoms. The ICU nurse told us that if he’d gone to A&E (accident and emergency) 24 hours earlier with the symptoms he’d had, they would’ve likely sent him home with paracetamol. Lucas was tough - he probably did have a terrible headache, but he didn’t like to complain.
We went from laughing and joking before I went away, to total devastation. As parents, it haunts us that we weren’t there for him on the day. Everything just conspired against us really. He was a 21-year-old man - if he’d been younger, maybe we would have reacted differently. We never suspected meningitis because we assumed he was protected because he’d had all his vaccinations.
Life after Lucas
After Lucas passed away, life as we knew it, ended. Along with his two brothers, Lucas was the centre of our universe and it’s so hard to come to terms with the fact that we’ll never watch him play football again or share a glass of wine with him on a Friday night. He was inspirational in so many ways and his loss has left a gaping hole in the lives of his many friends, but most of all with us, his family.
People say you’ll have moments of joy again, but the default feeling is loss and sadness. We know that Lucas would have hated that and would have wanted us to go on and be happy but squaring what we know he would have wanted and how we actually feel is the hardest thing imaginable.
Turning pain into purpose
We set up Looky’s Aid to help young people facing adversity. After Lucas’s death, we received so many messages from people he had helped – from friends struggling with physical or mental health issues to new classmates who were feeling lonely arriving at a new school. He was always looking out for others, so setting up a charity in his honour felt like the right thing to do.
His friends have rallied around the charity, running marathons, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and fundraising in multiple ways. The community on the Isle of Man has also been great - the support we’ve had here has been overwhelming.