Kasey-Lei Greene, a ‘bubbly, caring and tough’ 13-year-old from Sutton Coldfield, tragically died while on a trip to the cinema in Abu Dhabi
A girl who died while on a trip to the cinema hugged her dad goodbye moments before her death.
Kasey-Lei Greene, from Sutton Coldfield, went to the Vox Cinema at Yas Mall in the United Arab Emirates – where she had been living with her family in Abu Dhabi for 14 months.
The 13-year-old went to the cinema with a friend after giving her dad, Marc, a hug at home at around 5.30pm, but collapsed an hour later while watching a film at the venue. Doctors spent two hours working on the teen while she was at the cinema. She was then taken to hospital but couldn’t be saved after suffering a suspected cardiac arrest.
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Marc, Kasey’s mum Manda and brother Kian returned to the UK for Kasey’s funeral on October 3, reports Birmingham Live. Pink and black ribbons were tied on the funeral procession route from Marc’s mum’s house in Erdington to Erdington Abbey in Sutton Road, where more than 600 people turned out to pay their respects. Many more also watched a live stream of the funeral, including Kasey’s friends and classmates back in Abu Dhabi.
Marc, 37, said he had agreed for Kasey to have her friend, Aria, around for a sleepover on September 4. And because she had been ‘good around the house and with her brother Kian’, Marc agreed for the friends to go to the Vox Cinema in Yas Island, Abu Dhabi.
He booked them a taxi and Kasey gave her dad a hug – heartbreakingly for what would be the last time. He said: “Aria called me from Kasey’s phone and said ‘Kasey’s passed out’. I literally ran to the car. The cinema is not even half a mile from my house. She had passed out in the cinema watching the movie.
“Over there, they are on it straight away. They had a defibrillator and an ambulance crew had come in 10 minutes and had a machine on her. I was literally screaming, holding her hand. I let them do what they could, but I could see she had gone. Officially, her death is a cardiac arrest. She had had a few issues before.”
On their final moment together before Kasey left for the cinema, dad Marc said: “She just grabbed me and said to her friend ‘quick, take a picture of me and my dad’. She didn’t check it.
“She held me so tight like she knew that was the last time I would ever feel or hear her voice again. Normally she would plan it and add filters and redo it if it wasn’t right – but not this time. That hug blows my mind.”
The Greene family moved to Abu Dhabi in July 2024 and bought a house off-plan which was being built for them to move into next year. They had gone to ‘try and give the kids a better life’, having been to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates on holiday over recent years.
Describing Kasey, her parents said she was ‘bubbly, very outgoing but also dippy’. She used to ‘really love little kids’. Marc said: “She had very different circles of friends and did try and bring people together. The priest at her funeral said she was sent as an influencer and influenced people to come together. He said the whole time he has been at that church he had never seen that turnout. There was 600 hundred there or more.”
He continued: “She made friends very easily. From all walks of life. She would bring people home and her friends would call us aunty and uncle. Our house was like a meeting place.”
While mum Manda, 36, added: “She drew people to her. One girl came up and said ‘you’re really beautiful’. She went out and just found people.”
Kasey loved family holidays to Disneyland in Florida, to Spain and to the caravan park in Devon. She also used to love sitting at her vanity unit to do her fake tan, nails and lashes. Kasey was also doing vlogs, posting them on TikTok or Snapchat. “She was very humorous and made faces,” her dad said.
Manda said: “She used to like mugging me off. She would rob my clothes and say I was too fat for them.” Marc said ‘they were like sisters’. Manda added: “If she put her mind to do something she’d do it, 100 per cent.”
Marc continued: “But she was dippy. She went to the chippy here and ordered a potato scallop and she said ‘I don’t know what that is, I’m no good at geography’! She would wrap me around her finger.”
Manda added: “But behind all the dippiness, she was intelligent and tough. She always had a back-up plan for everything.” Kasey had struggled in Abu Dhabi for the first three months but then ‘thrived and excelled’ like Kian, with both loving school.
In Kasey’s memory, the family have started a GoFundMe page, Kasey’s Wells of Life to pay for water wells in Africa.
And with Halloween being her favourite time of the year, aunt Emma is hosting the Big Family Halloween party at The Diggers pub in Moor Lane on Saturday, October 25, from 2pm to 6pm, with a DJ, party games, decorate a pumpkin and cookies and more, along with a raffle at £4 a ticket for children, with everything going towards Kasey’s Wells of Life.