A COUPLE who took the heartbreaking decision to turn off the ventilator keeping their daughter alive have raised almost £4,000 for the hospital which cared for her.

Matthew and Lucy Turner, with help from friends and family, have raised £3,750 for Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, Pendlebury, in memory of their baby daughter Annabel.

Matthew, 30, who works for Haydock Finance in Blackburn, said: "We wanted to do something to give something back to Pendlebury Hospital because they were really good there."

Annabel suffered from a mystery illness that left her unable to breathe without a ventilator.

Doctors suspected she had an unnamed condition that prevented her brain from transmitting instructions to her airways. No cure was known.

Consultants advised the family that the condition was untreatable and advised the withdrawal of the ventilator helping her to breathe.

Matthew and Lucy were with Annabel when she died in August 2002 aged just 22 months.

The couple of Oak Close, Barrow, near Whalley, wanted to mark Annabel's death in a positive way by raising money through taking part in the 10-kilometre Blackpool Fun Run in May.

Fourteen sponsored runners took part in the cause and wore T-shirts bearing a picture of Annabel and sponsored by company Greyhound Ford of Altham.

Matthew said: "The support we have got from first of all friends and family, and then in turn their friends and family, has been superb and very generous."

Matthew, speaking of Annabel's death 14 months since it happened, said: "There hasn't been any light shed on why she died, it's still very much as it was at the time.

"It was a neurological and metabolic degenerative process, which basically means that they don't really know what it was."

In June this year, however, there was joy for Matthew and Lucy when they had a baby girl called Eva.

Matthew said: "It's fantastic to have Eva, she has really helped us a lot."