THE mother of a teenage girl who died in the Greenvale Hotel tragedy three years ago has said the loss feels like a “chunk of your heart has been ripped out”.
In her first print interview, Mary Bullock has described how 17-year-old Lauren’s young life was cruelly ended after she was caught in a crush at the Cookstown hotel on St Patrick’s night 2019.
Lauren Bullock died along with two other teenagers, Morgan Barnard (17) and Connor Currie (16), as they queued for a disco.
Now, on the third anniversary, Ms Bullock, along with her husband Martin, have spoken of their family’s heartbreak.
The Bullock family home in Donaghmore, Co Tyrone seeps warmth as you enter through the narrow hall into a light-filled living room.
The walls are adorned with family photos and pictures of the popular teenager.
They tell a story of happier times and the love felt for a lost child.
The middle child of three, Lauren is also survived by her grieving siblings Shane (23) and Ryan (15).
Ms Bullock glances at her husband Martin, who sits quietly across the room, as she talks about their daughter.
“She was just special, we probably all say this about our own children, but she was something else,” she said.
The mother recounted how Lauren’s thoughts and actions always turned to others.
Even from the day she came into this world and when I went on to have Ryan she just took over as a mother to Ryan,” she said.
“She was just such a kind-hearted, good girl who wanted to help others.”
Ms Bullock revealed how Lauren, a pupil at St Patrick’s College in Dungannon, wanted to go into a caring profession when she left school.
“Me and her had many a chat, she wanted to be a social worker and I was saying ‘Lauren, I don’t think that’s the way you should go at all’.
“But she said ‘Mummy, that’s what I want to do, I want to help children’.
“She was doing really well at her exams in school, she was very popular in school.”
Lauren’s lively personality also rubbed off on her teachers.
"She was just such a helpful girl around the house and always up and jolly and would have gone into the school and peeped her head around the door to the teacher and gave them a bit of a laugh,” her mother said.
“She had her wee circle of friends and she used to always try and help them and if somebody I suppose was worried about something, she would have gone and talked to the teacher for them.”
Ms Bullock explained how she shared a close bond with the teenager and that they were planning a trip to Disneyland in Paris.
“Me and Lauren worked as a pair really, because no matter what... I always went to her for advice and she just took her hand to everything,” said her mother.
"We were always plotting and planning.
“Everybody is always blowing about their children but Lauren, when she came into the room, a light came on.”
Ms Bullock said before Lauren’s death she lived a typical teenager’s life, she loved her part-time job at McDonald’s in Dungannon and was learning to drive.
When not at home she was found with friends or at a local community centre where she was part of a cheerleading team - an activity she loved.
The teen had attended the Greenvale Hotel twice before the fateful night she lost her life – the previous Halloween and Christmas.
Like many other young people from the area, Lauren was looking forward to getting out on St Patrick’s night.
As she left home that evening full of joy and expectation, Ms Bullock had no way of knowing that within hours she would be standing over her daughter’s lifeless body.
The shattered mother said the sense of loss never leaves.
“It’s like you’ve lost an arm, its like a chunk of your heart has been ripped out and it will never be replaced,” she said.
“And every day you get up it’s the first thing you think of, it goes on all day churning through you.
“For a long time I asked myself, what had I done wrong, what had we done wrong to bring this on our house?”
She said the pain of what happened at the Greenvale Hotel also went beyond her immediate family.
“Our children were well looked after and it was a house full of love (and) from both grandparents’ houses – a very close family,” she said.
“It has affected everybody’s life.
“And you know if you say you are going to do something you just feel so deflated because you think, ‘I don’t want to do this without Lauren’.
“But you kind of try to do it for the other children because they have to try to live on.”
She also talked of the personal guilt she feels for not being at her daughter’s side when she died.
“Nobody should have to take their child home – especially when it could have been prevented,” she said.
“That’s chewing at your insides all day.
“I was there for my children all the time and I have to live with the thought that I let my daughter down because I wasn’t there for her when she needed me.”
Ms Bullock said she continues to struggle with the impact of the tragedy.
“This is a very hard week, panic attacks and wakening up in the night and seeing Lauren lying there and it’s just such a terrible thing for all these people.”
Ms Bullock said she feels for other young people who were present at the Greenvale Hotel or injured on the night her daughter died.
“I was talking to a woman and she was saying she has a grandchild and he can’t sleep without the light on now.”
She revealed that a young man who tried in vain to save Lauren’s life later made contact with the family.
“We had a wee lad came into the house after and he actually was the one helped out Lauren and tried to save her,” she said.
“When all those adults were in there that night and those poor children were left to help each other.
“He was a stranger to her but he made sure he made contact with us to tell us.
“And he lays flowers on her grave every anniversary.
“He tried his best.”
The brave mother recognises the potential impact on survivors and revealed how she suffered trauma as a young woman when a man was shot dead in the shop where she worked during the Troubles.
“I carried that for a long time after it happened,” she said.
“I was in it that day and I was pricing the bread that morning and I was sent away to wash the floor, I was standing right beside him, where he was shot.
“I struggled for years after it and I know what the children are going through that were there (at the Greenvale Hotel) that night.”
She also revealed how in the month’s after Lauren’s death her family was trolled by someone using a fake Snapchat account.
Ms Bullock said she has also been subjected to heartless remarks since her daughter died.
“Some of the things that’s been said to us you couldn’t repeat them, really nasty, hurtful things,” she said.
The devoted mother also told how her family continues to keep her daughter’s name alive.
She revealed how in recent years family and friends have raised £22,000 in memory of her daughter, with the funds divided between several charities.
“What we are trying to do is just keep Lauren’s memory alive,” she said.
“At the end of the day what’s breaking my heart is that Lauren is not here to see all these things that have been done in her name.”
The grieving mother said thinking of what might have been continues to be difficult.
“It was just heartbreaking thinking that Lauren was gone and so much was taken from her, she wanted to make such a difference in her life and wasn’t able to do so.
“It has totally changed our life in so many ways and you’ll never get any of that back.”
An anniversary Mass will be celebrated for Lauren at St Patrick’s Church in Donaghmore tonight at 7.30pm.
A similar Mass was held for Morgan Barnard in Dungannon last night.
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