TikTok star Laura Lee Watts mourns death of ‘beautiful’ teen daughter following epileptic seizure
A TikTok influencer is grieving the loss of her 15-year-old daughter, who died following an epileptic seizure.
"I cannot believe that I’m making this video and I’m going to do my best to get through it," Laura Lee Watts, a social media personality known for her "realistic" beauty reviews, said in a TikTok video this week. "Most of you know that I have three children, and my oldest is Savannah. She’s 15 and she’s epileptic.”
Watts added, "I wanted to let you know that yesterday morning, she had a fatal seizure and passed away."
In August 2021, Watts shared on TikTok that Savannah was diagnosed with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. According to the Cleveland Clinic, it's a severe and rare form of childhood epilepsy that causes seizures and results in a "temporary, unstoppable surge" of brain activity. The effect can be uncontrolled muscle movements or loss of consciousness.
According to Watts, her daughter experienced "absence seizures," which the Cleveland Clinic says could be interpreted as daydreaming or a state of distraction.
"She would kind of space out for 10 or 15 seconds, kind of like she was asleep," Watts explained in her August video. "She would have those hundreds of times a day. When she first started having them, actually, I thought she wasn't listening to me."
As Savannah grew up, she experienced tonic-clonic seizures, formerly known as "grand mal" seizures. Although Watts hoped her daughter would outgrow her seizures, they only worsened.
In her latest video Watts described her daughter as "the most beautiful child I’ve ever known with the most beautiful soul and the kindest heart."
"I don’t know how I’m going to live without her," she added. "My baby."
A spokesperson for Watts tells TODAY.com that she was not available to comment further on Savannah's death. A representative of the Ventura County Medical Examiner’s Office confirms to TODAY.com that Savannah died in Ventura County, California, and did not have an autopsy.
Related video:
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
