The family of a 34-year-old who died after suffering breathing difficulties have thanked those who helped them raise £32,000 for lifesaving equipment.

Mark Jones, who was born and bred in the village, passed away at Medway Maritime Hospital with a chest infection in December 2013.

Mark, dad to six-year-old Leah, needed a special machine which aids breathing and could have saved his life. But the nearest one was at St Thomas’ Hospital in London and, though just 30 minutes away from the hospital, it arrived too late for Mark.

Mr Jones said: “We will never know if this machine could have made a difference, but we all decided we did not want anyone else to be faced with the same situation.”

Those who knew Mark were determined to get equipment for the hospital emergency department after his untimely death.

It soon became apparent that they could not reach the £1 million needed to buy the ECMO machine, which cleans blood and adds oxygen.

So they settled with funding for two beds, which cost about £11,000 each, a £4,500 patient transfer monitor and equipment for paramedics. Mark’s family went along to the hospital to hand over the equipment to staff.

Members of Hoo Village Institute joined forces to collect £10,680 to buy specialist beds for the hospital’s intensive care unit.

And more than £20,000 was raised by his colleagues at Charities Aid Foundation where Mark worked and met his wife Rebecca.

His dad, John Jones, 69, of Miskin Road, Hoo, said: “Mark died two years ago and this was an absolutely amazing effort to collect so much in such a short time.

“We are all members of the institute and we usually raise £5,000 for charity in a year. Mark’s death obviously touched a lot of people.”

After contracting meningitis when he was 20, Mark who lived in Sittingbourne, focused on keeping fit and healthy.

Mr Jones said: “We can’t thank everyone enough and especially the staff at the ICU who did everything they could for Mark and were very kind to us as a family.”