Shock at death of chickenpox dad
A father-of-three and former publican died from chickenpox on the day he told his family he was feeling better.
A father-of-three and former publican died from chickenpox on the day he told his family he was feeling better.
Coach driver John Pyatt, aged 40, had been "joking and laughing" with four-year-old daughter Bethany just an hour before his wife Carla returned home to find him unconscious on the sofa at their Dudley home. S
he called an ambulance to the house in Tennyson Street, Pensnett, and he was taken to Dudley's Russells Hall Hospital but doctors were unable to save his life. Mrs Pyatt, aged 34, said she and other relatives were struggling to come to terms with the loss.
She said: "I could understand it if he had had a heart condition or something like that but there was absolutely nothing wrong with him. It has come as a massive shock not just to me but to everyone in the family.
"He felt better on the day he died. He got out of bed and came downstairs and he was joking and laughing with Bethany."
Mrs Pyatt said her husband, a former landlord of the Queen's Head pub in Pensnett, seemed so much better she decided to take Bethany to see her aunt.
"But when I got back an hour later he was lying on the settee and when I walked in he could hardly breathe and was unconscious," she said.
Mr Pyatt, who also leaves two children from a previous marriage, was pronounced dead at around 6.30pm on Saturday
He had been diagnosed with chickenpox on Tuesday and was prescribed antibiotics on Friday after a doctor visited and found some of the pox had become infected.
Mrs Pyatt said doctors at Russells Hall had told her there was nothing they could have done even if he had been admitted to hospital on Friday.
Mrs Pyatt said she was "absolutely devastated" and paid tribute to "a very loving husband, a great father" who was "always happy and always joking around". He "idolised" his daughter Bethany "and she idolised him", she said.
A "mad" West Bromwich Albion fan, Mr Pyatt grew up in Swan Street in Pensnett. Mr Pyatt's funeral will be held at Gornal Crematorium at 4.10pm on Friday, December 28.
