Mum’s heartbreak as she learns son died after seeing ‘RIP’ Facebook post

Emma recalled how she saw ‘RIP Jon Cain’ on Facebook before police confirmed her son’s death

A mother whose teenage son died after inhaling gas canisters has told how she now marches up to youngsters she spots doing “balloons” in the street to warn them of the deadly risks.

Emma Cain’s son Jon was just 17 when he went into cardiac arrest in 2011 after inhaling butane. He had only been experimenting for a few weeks and, on the day he died, his friends had bought eight canisters of lighter fluid in one go.

Fifteen years later, the mother‑of‑five is urging families to wake up to the dangers of solvents and nitrous oxide, both Class C drugs, warning that too many parents are still being left to endure the same heartbreak she lives with every day.

An inquest last year found that Amy Louise Leonard, 20 and from Bolton, died in tragically similar circumstances to Jon after inhaling laughing gas. Amy had shared a Facebook message urging young people to “put down their balloons”, just days before her death, describing how repeated abuse had left her temporarily unable to walk.

Emma told the Mirror how irate she becomes when she sees discarded gas canisters littered across town and city centres, reminding her of her son’s death.

“I get angry. I came out of my son Joshua’s flat a few weeks ago, and as I walked past the green area where they put their rubbish… I didn’t count them, but there was a good seven or eight canisters, put there for rubbish. And it just makes me so angry”.

“It was early in the morning, I was getting my youngsters ready for school. When the police called me, they said that ‘something had happened, obviously didn’t say over the phone, and that they were sending some officers to see me,” she said when recalling the devastating moment in 2011, she learnt what had happened to her son.

“When I came off the phone, I just threw it on the sofa. A few seconds later I picked it up and went onto Jon’s profile on Facebook, and someone had written ‘RIP Jon Cain’ – that’s how I found out – and then the police came and told me what had happened.

“I remember collapsing to the floor and being picked up. Then the police came, they took me into the living room. My sister made me a sweet cup of tea, and then took my little ones to school for me”.

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Jon was an “amazing boy” who would “throw himself halfway across the room” just to make his brothers laugh, his mum described. Aged 15, he was placed into care for behavioural issues, she added, citing how he was “easily influenced” by his peers.

Now, Emma believes her son had an undiagnosed disorder, such as ADHD or autism, conditions which were “not as understood” at the time.

“There are days I will just sit there, and I will just burst into tears,” she said, explaining the grief she lives with. “And there’s days when I’m okay – sometimes I feel guilty for being okay.

“But I know he doesn’t want me to be miserable, he doesn’t want me to be upset every day – and I just try and do what I can to make him proud, because I believe he’s living through me now”.

The tragedy has also left its mark on Jon’s four siblings, some of whom were young when he died. “It’s not just obviously the parents that lose someone – it affects their friends, it affects their siblings,” she explained. “Jon was [brother] Joshua’s hero, he was his idol… and he has had to deal with a lot due to the loss of his brother”.

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Working with organisations like Achievement Through Football (ATF), Emma speaks with children at risk of falling into anti-social behaviour and substance abuse, often those who have been repeatedly excluded from school.

“I don’t think they see it as dangerous because of silly names like ‘laughing gas,” she explained. “What obviously they don’t realise is that it’s not mixed with oxygen, like it is at the dentist’s, or the hospital. It’s pure gas… they just don’t realise how dangerous it is”.

She also believes that, while schools and the police are “doing what they can” to deal with substance abuse, parents must accept more responsibility to talk to their children about why laughing gas and solvents aren’t a “safe” high – even if they don’t suspect their kids are using them.

She said: “Talk to your kids. Just talk to them. Let them know the dangers, research it – whether they’re doing it or not”.