'I still cannot accept my brother and sister both died together on the same day - it feels impossibly cruel'
22.01.2024 - 17:11
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
A woman whose brother and sister died on the same night has spoken of her heartbreak and warned others not to take medication not prescribed to them.
Jade Couperthwaite, 32, woke up at her Bolton flat on September 6 2022 to find her sister Carla Couperthwaite, 26, unresponsive next to her on the sofa. She shouted for her brother Stephen Fisher, 33, in the bedroom next door, and when paramedics arrived minutes later, Jade ran in to wake Stephen – to find he also was not breathing.
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"I still cannot accept they both died together on the same day," she said. "It feels impossibly cruel. Carla and me were best friends as well as sisters. She was beautiful, and she was such a lovely, kind-hearted, funny girl.
“I was her big sister and I looked after her ever since she was newborn. It breaks my heart I could not protect her the night she died."
Jade said people often mistook her and Carla for twins because they looked so alike. The sisters lived together, borrowed each other's clothes, and 'did everything together,' she continued.
“My life feels so empty without her. We always did each other’s nails and make-up. I did Carla’s, in the funeral home, knowing it would be the last time ever. It broke my heart."
Earlier this month an inquest into their deaths concluded their deaths were drug related after the pair took morphine Stephen claimed had been prescribed to him for tooth pain. Now, Jade is speaking of her agony in the hopes Carla's death can serve as a warning to others not to to take medication not prescribed to them.
She said Carla would still be alive if she hadn't taken the morphine for her toothache. "Nothing will bring her back, but perhaps