FAMILY and friends have paid tribute to a Colwyn Bay man who died 18 months after suffering a head injury while working in Hong Kong.
Salesman Richard Andrew Ackroyd (pictured right) died earlier this month, aged 35, more than a year after he slipped and banged his head in a Hong Kong shopping mall.
His mum Val said: “Everyone said he was a lovely guy and very sociable. He could be a wild child and he enjoyed a good time, but he was very caring.
“Although what has happened is so very hard to bear, we feel so blessed to have had these last few months with him. To have seen him making progress was great.
“But just to have our sometimes infuriating, always charming, delightfully funny, caring, wonderful son with us, for what we now realise have been bonus months, has been so very special.”
Richard’s dad David said his son, a former Eirias High School pupil, had also suffered another accident, in which he broke his arm, three weeks before the shopping mall fall in July 2010.
“We will never know whether he fell peculiarly because of his injured arm,” he said. “He had three major brain operations, he was in a coma for eight weeks and he didn’t look as though he would survive - but he did.”
After six months Richard returned to the UK and underwent surgery at Llandudno hospital and Clatterbridge hospital on the Wirral.
Despite suffering permanent brain damage his condition had improved and his family described his death as “sudden and unexpected”.
Since returning to live with his parents, Richard had become a regular social member of Colwyn Bay Cricket Club.
Chairman Brian Hughes said everyone had been left shocked by the news.
Richard, who had an MSc in marine biology from York University, was working in Hong Kong for a medical equipment supplier and had lived on Lantau Island.
He also leaves behind a brother, Stephen.
To make a donation to the family’s chosen charity in memory of Richard visit justgiving.com/RichAckroyd.