Girl, 13, Dies After Collapsing at Movie Theater. Her Dad Recalls ‘Screaming, Holding Her Hand’ as EMTs Tried to Save Her

A family is mourning the death of their 13-year-old daughter after she collapsed and suffered cardiac arrest during a trip to the movies.

Kasey-Lei Greene was at a theater in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on Sept. 4 when she suddenly collapsed, according to Birmingham Live.

Her father, Marc, 37, told the outlet that Kasey-Lei had planned to have a sleepover with a friend that evening. She had convinced him to call a taxi for the two girls so they could go to the Vox Cinema at Yas Mall.

Kasey-Lei — a British teenager who had moved from the U.K. to Abu Dhabi in 2024 — said goodbye to her father around 5:30 p.m. and gave him a hug. Less than an hour later, Marc said, his daughter’s friend used her phone to call and say something was wrong.

“[Her friend] called me from Kasey’s phone and said, ‘Kasey’s passed out,’” Marc recalled. “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.”

“They had a defibrillator, and an ambulance crew arrived within ten minutes and started working on her,” he continued. “I was screaming, holding her hand. I let them do what they could, but I could see she had gone.”

Emergency responders worked on the 13-year-old for two hours before transporting her to a local hospital. Marc said Kasey-Lei had suffered cardiac arrest and noted that she “had had a few issues before.”

He also remembered the final moment they shared before she left for the movie theater.

“She just grabbed me and said to her friend, ‘Quick, take a picture of me and my dad,’” he said. “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,” he added about his social-media-loving daughter. “That hug blows my mind.”

Marc, along with Kasey-Lei’s mother, Manda, and her brother, Kian, returned to their hometown in the Birmingham area for her funeral on Oct. 3.

More than 600 people attended the service, and additional friends and classmates in Abu Dhabi watched online.

“She made friends very easily, from all walks of life,” Marc said. “She would bring people home, and her friends would call us aunty and uncle. Our house was like a meeting place.”

“She drew people to her,” added Kasey-Lei’s mother, who was already in Birmingham at the time arranging her late mother’s funeral. “One girl came up and said, ‘You’re really beautiful.’ She went out and just found people.”

According to Marc, the family has received thousands of messages of support since Kasey-Lei’s passing.

“I am finding lots of comfort in people’s acknowledgment of her,” he said. “I have been on autopilot since it happened. The last couple of days, I think it’s got a little bit tougher.”

In her memory, friends and family have launched a GoFundMe campaign to build clean water wells in communities in Kenya, Tanzania, and Cameroon.

“This stems from her friend TJ, who is from a Muslim background. When somebody dies, they do something good in the world,” Marc explained.

“Kasey was full of life, laughter, and kindness. She had a huge heart and a smile that could light up any room. Our family sadly laid Kasey to rest in her hometown of Birmingham, but we now want her name and her spirit to continue touching lives around the world,” the GoFundMe page reads. “Thank you for helping us create Kasey’s Wells of Life and continue her legacy of kindness and joy.”