Hull singer Johnny Pat's grief at death of son Kevin Paterson after Birmingham Half-Marathon

ONE of Hull's best-known entertainers has spoken of his shock and grief after his son collapsed and died moments after completing a half-marathon.

Johnny Paterson, who has performed as Johnny Pat and The Aces for more than 50 years, has been left devastated by the loss of his son, Kevin, 36, who died soon after crossing the finish line of the Birmingham Half Marathon.

Medics tried for an hour to resuscitate him and save his life but he is believed to have died instantly.

Johnny, 70, revealed Kevin's heart has now been sent away for tests to try to establish what caused his death, leaving his family with a wait of up to six weeks before they can hold his funeral.

"We are devastated," said Johnny.

"For the first three days, I was thinking 'is this a bad dream and am I going to wake up?'

"If someone has been ill, it's something you can expect but not when they haven't.

"The child should never go before the parent.

"For me, it will be closure when we bury him.

"Although it is very upsetting, we all want to know why he has gone.

"We have no idea why he died."

Kevin, who lived in Birmingham, took up running five years ago.

But he ran his first half-marathon when he completed the Great North Run as a ten-year-old, before the age restriction changed, and also played baseball and five-a-side football as an adult.

His family said he had trained for the 13.1-mile race on October 21 and was well prepared.

Johnny, of east Hull, said: "We got a call in the afternoon and we expected to find out what time he had got.

"We were told he got over the line, looked at his time, grinned and said to a nurse he didn't feel very well but would be all right. He walked two steps and collapsed.

"Within seconds, they had him on a trolley on oxygen.

"They took him to the revival tent and tried to resuscitate him for an hour."

Johnny, Kevin's mother Patricia Toft, 70, and other family members were invited to meet race organisers, as well as doctors and paramedics who tried to save Kevin's life, last week.

The family also laid flowers at the half marathon finish line where Kevin died.

Johnny said: "The paramedics were very upset because they don't want to lose anybody.

"They tried everything and we can't thank them enough."

Kevin, who worked as a share evaluator at KPMG, was married to wife Katy, 30, for four years. He had a passion for travelling and cooking.

Johnny said he is still trying to come to terms with his son's death.

"I had never seen him look so fit," he said. "He got his good looks and his wisdom from his mother but he got his love for life from me because he was always doing something. I could never pin him down to see him for a weekend.

"I wasn't grieving like everybody else at first and I didn't know why. But people grieve in different ways.

"I'm not a hard person. I cry at films. But I'm bewildered."

Kevin's sister Laura Bartley, 31, of County Durham, said the family had no reason to question his health or fitness.

"He was well prepared for it," she said. "I feel empty. Kev is going to leave a massive hole in the life of those who knew him."

Laura said Kevin was a kind man who lived life to the full and made the most of every day.

She said: "He crammed so much into his 36 years.

"Some of us could get to 70 or 80 and not do half as much.

"He was one of a kind."

Kevin also leaves behind a brother, Sean Paterson, 41, of Goole, and sister Maddy, 22, of east Hull.

Kevin's oldest sister, Kathryn Cowen, 38, of Whitley Bay, paid tribute to her brother on social networking site Facebook, where a page has been set up in his memory.

She said: "I will never have enough words to describe everything that my baby brother was.

"But I'll give a few to try to sum up the boy he was and the man he became – intelligent, opinionated, baked bean-lover, affectionate, charismatic, generous, fun-loving, protective, and, most importantly, he was a family man."