Well-wishers raise more than £50,000 for six children orphaned when parents died 48 hours apart

Toby and Jennifer Norsworthy died suddenly of unrelated causes last month

Toby and Jennifer Norsworthy died within 48 hours of one another

Well-wishers have raised almost $80,000 (£55,000) for six children whose parents died less than 48 hours apart.

Their mother, Jennifer Norsworthy, died of a blood clot aged 40 on 22 April and two days later, their father suffered a heart attack in his sleep.

Toby Norsworthy, 38, was pronounced dead at the same hospital as his wife of more than a decade in Madison, Alabama.

Ricky Self, an associate pastor at the church the couple attended, told WHNT television they were devoted to each other.

“Toby loved Jennifer,” he said. “She was his world and so he was of course heartbroken when she passed away.”

Friends of the family set up a fundraising page to support the children after the double tragedy.

The couple had three children together aged between six and 11, while Mrs Norsworthy had three children aged between 13 and 20 from before their marriage.

Leslie Plunkett, a former schoolmate of Mr Norsworthy who set up the GoFundMe page, described the pair as “kind and gentle parents” would be greatly missed.

She said all donations would be given to the children’s legal guardians and handled by their lawyers to help them “in any way possible” towards funeral costs and their future.

“We want to thank everyone for their selfless generosity, kind words and the amount of donations made by family, friends, and many total strangers,” Mrs Plunkett wrote, saying individual donations had ranged between $5 (£3.50) and $1,000 (£700).

“We have been completely floored by the selflessness and compassion of everyone and we wish Toby and Jennifer were here to see this support for their family.”