Emma and her parents were eagerly anticipating taking 10-month-old George on his first
overseas holiday. However, their trip took a tragic turn when George fell seriously ill and,
unfortunately, passed away shortly after their arrival in Tunisia.
“George was a 10-month-old healthy, giggly, beautiful baby boy, who we were so excited to
be taking on his first holiday abroad to Tunisia with mummy, nanna and granddad. Sadly, he
never got to enjoy his first holiday or even know he was abroad.
“We woke George up at 3am ready for our 6.15am flight from Manchester Airport. All the
way to the airport and at the airport George was his usual happy, excitable, smiling self,
drinking plenty and wide awake.
“As we queued to board the plane George was suddenly and unexpectedly sick. Although
this was unusual I presumed this was due to the disturbance to his routine, the fact he’d just
drank a whole bottle and that I’d just lifted him from his pram.
“I quickly changed his babygrow and boarded the plane and George fell straight asleep,
presumably exhausted from being sick. During the flight I changed his nappy and he awoke
and was alert, but seemed grumpy and tired. He then fell back asleep in my arms for the
remainder of the flight.
“Once we arrived in Tunisia I fed George another full bottle and he again seemed tired,
grumpy and lethargic, which we thought was due to the fact that he’d been awoken in the
night and was still catching up on his sleep.”
“Once we arrived at the hotel I fed George his baby food jar, which he ate half of before
falling asleep again. This was the first time I began to think there was something not quite
right”.
“We got our keys to the room and I dug out my thermometer and realised he had a
temperature. I immediately stripped him off and ran him a cool bath. He was very floppy and
needed holding up in the bath and wouldn’t play with his duck or splash about as he usually
would.
“My dad went down to ask for the hotel doctor and returned with the hotel nurse, who said he
would ring for the hotel doctor who would arrive within half an hour. By this point, 4pm,
George was getting harder to wake and was going cross eyed when he did open his eyes.
He was also very pale and his skin became mottled.
“The doctor arrived and checked George’s eyes and ears before telling us we would be safer
taking him to hospital for tests and possibly an overnight stay, although he assured us there
was nothing to worry about.
“We were at the hospital within half an hour’s taxi journey and once there we only had to wait
ten minutes before a doctor arrived and again looked at George’s eyes and ears, took his
temperature and told us to bring him up to the children’s ward to run further tests.
“It was then we noticed George’s hands, feet and ears were turning slightly blue and were
very cold even though he had a high temperature. He had also developed tiny pin prick black
spots around his mouth.
“Once in the children’s ward the paediatrician plus two nurses began taking blood, put
George on a drip and also a medicine to bring down his temperature. They attached him to a
heart monitor and led us to a private room while they performed X- rays, extracted urine and
administered a lumbar puncture.
“As the hospital staff spoke little English we struggled to understand what they were doing or
asking any questions and they kept asking us if he’d eaten anything unusual as they were
unsure what was wrong.
“After roughly an hour, around 7pm by this point, George began wriggling and getting
frustrated trying to turn over but getting himself tangled in the wires, so I kept turning him
around and trying to keep him calm.
“It was after his third attempt to roll that I sat him up and noticed his whole face had turned a
purple/red colour and he had developed big red blotches all over his head. He also began
pooing a weird yellow, scrambled egg like faeces, which was unlike anything he’d ever done
before.
“We called the nurses who immediately began giving him oxygen via a mask and told us
they needed to take him straight to intensive care. Watching them lead George away while
he was obviously in distress at being made to wear a mask and trying to wriggle to see me is
something I will never forget.
“It was about two hours before they eventually came to tell us that they had made George
stable, but that the next 24 hours was critical and that he had an infection in his blood and
lungs but that they were still unsure what had caused it and whether he would be okay.
“Dad and I then asked to go and see George and what met us was astonishing. He had
been put to sleep and was on a life support machine with wires up his nose and in his
mouth. They told us he couldn’t hear us and that the machine was breathing for him. His
whole body was red with big white blotches, which we later know was a sign of septicaemia.
“I stayed alone with George for a while, singing, talking and kissing him before the
paediatrician came to examine him and told me to leave the room. I could hear the machines
beeping and nurses rushing in and out and they informed me it wasn’t good, that he was
unstable and they were massaging his heart.
“Within 15 minutes the doctor returned to tell us that his heart had stopped and he had
unfortunately passed away.
“We couldn’t believe that such a healthy, advanced, happy little boy could be gone with
hardly any warning and little signs to know anything was seriously wrong in such a short
space of time. You truly wouldn’t believe it unless you had been unfortunate enough to have
experienced a similar situation.
“As we were under Tunisian law we weren’t allowed to hold George and the language barrier
made it extremely hard to ask or question the nurses and doctor as to what had happened
and what they did to try and save him.
“All that they could tell us was that it is a disease that spreads very quickly and that we got
him there quickly enough but that there was nothing to be done, whether home or away, to
save him as the disease just shut down his organs one by one and he couldn’t fight it back.
“The medical report we received was in French and from it we have translated that he had
low blood pressure and white blood platelets, a high temperature, an infection in his lungs
and septicaemia.
“The autopsy they later performed won’t be disclosed to us for up to a year, which is
unbelievable although of all the doctors and health professionals we have spoken to in the
UK they all believe that the signs and symptoms and cause of death sound very much like
meningococcal septicaemia.
“We not only lost our only child and grandchild but we also faced the challenges of informing
my husband, our family and trying to arrange George’s care and flight home from our hotel
room.
“We flew home three days later without our precious little boy and are still searching for
answers and desperate to raise awareness and money towards ensuring this nightmare
never happens to another family. We never got to enjoy a single day of the holiday we had
all been so excited and looking forward to and we will miss George’s beautiful face and
joyous giggle for the rest of our lives.
“George’s life was cut so cruelly short and we will never understand why. All we have left is a
huge gaping hole in all our lives and the utter disbelief that George is no longer here with
us.”
