Carol Youd: Sister Tanya Langmaid shares heartache after losing mum, dad and sister in 11 months

“She was the best and only sister I have”: A Tasmanian aged care worker who lost both her parents recently has now lost her sister too, after the beloved cleaner died tragically young of an aneurysm.

Bruny Island's Carol Youd, 42, at Austin Hospital in Melbourne. Picture: Supplied

Nineteen days after her beloved sister Carol Youd, a popular Bruny Island cleaner who ran her own business, had a catastrophic brain aneurysm, her sister Tanya Langmaid lay down next to the 42-year-old as her tubes were disconnected and she slipped away.

Ms Youd, who suffered the aneurysm on August 26 at the Lunawanna rental she shared with her fiance Matthew Bresnehan, had gone under the knife 11 times at Melbourne’s Austin Hospital in a desperate bid to ease the pressure on her brain, but the damage was too great.

“They threw everything they could at it,” Ms Langmaid, a Burnie aged care worker, said.

A family meeting was called on Friday, September 8, featuring Ms Langmaid, Ms Youd’s two adult children (her third is 13), and Mr Bresnehan, who has three children of his own.

Matthew Bresnehan and Carol Youd. Picture: Supplied

“They’d done tests to see what neurological signs we had. We didn’t have anything. Her brain was alive but there were no cognitive signs. We lost her,” Ms Langmaid said.

Ms Youd took her last breath at 3.10pm on September 14.

“I laid beside her as they took her tubes, everything, off her,” Ms Langmaid said.

It took 45 minutes for Ms Youd to die.

“I told her everything. I kept saying all the kids’ names,” she said.

Not only did Ms Langmaid lose her sister, but she also lost her last link to her parents, Steven and Rosemary Youd. Rosemary died in October last year of a heart attack, Steven in January of cancer.

Rosemary Langmaid and Carol Youd, taken just weeks before Ms Youd's death. Picture: Supplied

“I’ve lost everyone. My mum, my dad, my sister – they’re all I’ve got,” she said.

“I keep questioning why, why is this world so cruel?

“We’re numb. The kids are numb. We’re just going day by day at the moment.”

Ms Langmaid said her brother-in-law, Ms Youd’s fiance, has been traumatised Ms Youd’s passing.

Mr Bresnehan was cutting firewood in the yard when Ms Youd came home from work on August 26 with a headache. She told him she’d go upstairs and take Panadol.

Carol Youd with parents Steven and Rosemary, and daughter Nadia. Picture: Supplied

He was roused from his work when he saw Ms Youd “banging at the window screaming at the top of her voice, ‘Something’s going wrong’,” Ms Langmaid said.

“He dropped the saw and just caught her before she hit the ground. That’s when the aneurysm burst.”

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Mr Bresnehan and his eldest son Sam, who also lives on the island, “kept her alive for 45 minutes until the first responder arrived”.

“He can’t face going back there. Carol is his world. He’s a lost soul,” Ms Langmaid said, revealing she and her husband had taken him in for the foreseeable future.

Ms Youd, who, as a registered organ donor, gave the gift of life in her death to three others, remains in the Austin Hospital mortuary. It will cost her $3000 to come home – money the shrinking family doesn’t have.

Carol Youd with dad Steven, children Nadia and Manson, and her children’s partners Tristan and Indi. Picture: Supplied

An online fundraiser to help support the family has raised more than $4000 – but only approximately $700 remains, with money spent to accommodate the family at a Heidelberg caravan park during Carol’s three-week struggle.

Ms Langmaid said her sister was the “best and only sister I have”.

“She loved the beach, fishing, camping, and her children,” Ms Langmaid said.

“If she and Matt went for a drive, she would stop by the side of the road, pull out a camp oven and put a snag on it. She was so basic in what she did, but what she did, she loved.”