AN ACCOUNTANT is planning to shave her hair off in memory of her twin brother who died suddenly after a cyst developed in his brain.
Victoria Heath is shaving off her bob to mark the fifth anniversary of her twin Leon's death in November.
Leon, who was studying to be a vet, died in a hotel room as he prepared for a veterinary exam after suffering a colloid cyst of the brain.
Victoria, 27, said: "Even now, five years on, we are still devastated. Sometimes, I think I've just seen Leon yesterday and I think I'll see him tomorrow but he's not there.
"I just wanted to do something in his memory and this is what I've come up with."
Victoria and Leon, both former pupils of Sydney Smith School in west Hull, were close growing up and Leon had always been fit and healthy.
Victoria, of Spring Bank, said: "He was studying to be a vet and he had gone to a hotel in Preston to spend the night before his exam, as it started at 9am.
"He'd felt ill while he was driving there and was being sick on the motorway.
"The next morning, as he was getting dressed, he collapsed and went into a coma."
Hotel staff raised the alarm but an ambulance couldn't reach the hotel because of heavy traffic. The air ambulance was scrambled but it was too late to save Leon, who was pronounced dead at the hotel.
Victoria said: "We were at home when the police knocked on the door and told us what had happened."
With the fifth anniversary of her twin's death approaching, Victoria decided she wanted to raise money for a charity and is raising cash for the RSPCA, where Leon volunteered as a teenager, and Hull's special care baby unit, where the twins were cared for after they were born a month prematurely.
Leon, who worked at Fuel nightclub, also volunteered for the PDSA and Wilford Family Trust, helping people with disabilities and challenging behaviour.
"He was a really outgoing person and was the life and soul of the party," said Victoria.
"Leon would probably have hated me shaving my hair off as he liked me to be a girly girl.
"Lots of people are doing bungee jumps and skydives but I would like the thrill of things like that.
"I knew I had to choose something I wouldn't like so that's why I'm shaving my hair down to a number one all over."
Victoria has set up a Just Giving page – justgiving.com/victoriajaneheath– and is asking people to text donations for the special care baby unit to LEON83 and to use GENG86 if they'd like to make a donation to the RSPCA.
