Mother tells how E.coli killed son

Mar 7 2008 by Madeleine Brindley, Western Mail

Sharon Mills, the mother of Mason Jones, went to the E.coli public inquiry yesterday, determined to tell Wales that E.coli is not just a tummy ache. Her emotional evidence revealed the full horror of Mason’s illness and the helplessness she and partner Nathan Jones felt as they watched their son die. Health Editor Madeleine Brindley reports

WHEN five-year-old Mason Jones told his mother he was dying, Sharon Mills began to fear for her son’s life.

She had previously watched her eldest son Chandler succumb to, and recover from, the effects of E.coli O157 poisoning and she believed that Mason – who she described as the stronger boy – would do the same.

But just over two weeks after he first became ill, Mason died.

As she gave evidence to the E.coli public inquiry yesterday for the first time, Ms Mills recalled the moment Mason, who had been admitted to a specialist children’s hospital in England, told her he was dying.

She said, in her statement, to the inquiry, “When Mason was hallucinating he said to me, ‘Mamma, I’m dying’. Mason had never been a child who had ever talked about death – his words hit me for six.

“You could see it in Mason’s eyes that when he said these words he meant what he was saying. That was the first time that I began to form a deep-rooted feeling that Mason could die.

“I tried to reassure him and talked about things like how many children he was going to have when he got older. I told him that the doctors and nurses were going to make him better.”

Mason, a pupil at Deri Primary School, near Bargoed, fell ill just two days after his older brother Chandler, now 10, returned to school after recovering from E.coli O157 poisoning. He was sent home from school with a headache.

Ms Mills, a former hairdresser, said, “I was quite relieved when I returned home because he didn’t have the same symptoms as Chandler.”

But just a day later Mason began vomiting and had a high temperature. It was at this point that Ms Mills began to think that Mason may have E.coli, “even though his symptoms were slightly different to Chandler’s,” she said.

Just a week earlier, when the outbreak was declared, Ms Mills had sympathised with other families affected.

She said, “I saw on TV that some grandparents I knew down the road had a grandchild in hospital with serious renal failure.

“I thought, ‘the poor people’, not realising it was going to hit me.”

As Mason’s condition began to worsen and he started to suffer bloody diarrhoea, Ms Mills called the E.coli helpline on September 23, but despite her ringing during its opening hours, no one answered her call.

She later contacted a hospital, which told her that bloody diarrhoea was normal for E.coli poisoning, but she should look out for cold hands and feet, which could indicate Mason’s kidneys were failing.

She said, “He was passing a vast amount of blood at that point. Even with the nappy, it was dripping through the napkin.

“The smell was something I’ve never experienced before in my life.”

By the weekend, Mason was losing more blood, but despite again contacting the hospital, Ms Mills was reassured that this was a symptom of E.coli.

She also had a long conversation with a nurse from her local out-of-hours service. “I was starting to get frightened by the amount of blood coming from Mason,” Ms Mills said. “I just hoped the advice she [the nurse] was giving me was the right advice. The way she was giving me answers was like guesswork.”

Ms Mills learned on September 25 that both Mason and Chandler had tested positive for E.coli.

She said, “I cried, even though I suspected it, to hear it confirmed was like a bolt from the blue. Mason was the stronger boy. I thought if Chandler could get over it, then Mason certainly could.”

By this time Mason’s condition had deteriorated rapidly – he was losing a lot of blood and the corners of his lips were blue. But despite this, an out-of-hours doctor who examined him that lunchtime sent him home again with a prescription for Calpol and ibuprofen.

Just six hours later Mason began hallucinating – he was talking about a fork and could see slugs – and both his feet and hands were cold. Ms Mills was told that she would have to wait four or five hours for a doctor to call at their home in Deri – it emerged yesterday that the on-call doctor was attending to a man who had suffered a heart attack.

Instead she and partner Nathan Jones took him to hospital where Mason was finally admitted.

Ms Mills said, “I thought, at that point, if I had waited four to five hours, I think Mason would have died at home, the way he was going down hill.”

Nurses wrapped Mason in a blanket and put him on a drip but test results showed he had renal failure so he was transferred to a specialist hospital.

Mark Powell QC asked Ms Mills how she felt when she heard her son needed to be transferred to a larger hospital in Wales.

“I was in total shock, I can’t remember much only that I cried and cried. I could see just how poorly Mason was,” she said.

Mason arrived at the English hospital, which had specialist paediatric renal facilities, at 4am on September 26.

Ms Mills said, “He was asking for water and I wasn’t allowed to give it to him. He was crying out. He was sufficiently alert to be frightened and he knew things weren’t going well.”

Mason underwent two operations after he was transferred – the first to fit a catheter to allow him to have dialysis. But before he had the second, he suffered a serious fit. He was admitted to intensive care after the second operation, where he was given help breathing. An MRI scan revealed that his brain function was normal.

He remained stable and sedated for the next five days but then developed a rash, which spread across his arms and chest, probably as the result of antibiotics. By October 3, doctors told Ms Mills and Mr Jones that Mason had run into problems and could die.

The couple stayed with him for 45 minutes as the medical team tried to resuscitate him. Mason died at 12.30am on October 4.

“His eyes seemed very strange, they were very red. It looked like he wasn’t there. The doctors did all they could, above and beyond the call of duty,” Ms Mills said.

In her statement Ms Mills, who visits Mason’s grave twice a day, added, “Nathan was standing at the foot of his bed sobbing uncontrollably and I sat at the bottom of his bed rocking back and fore and constantly muttering, ‘No, no’.

“He had so much to live for. He was a beautiful child and I couldn’t understand why this had happened.

“When Mason passed away I felt numb. I felt as if I were looking at someone else’s child. I thought that it couldn’t be Mason lying there. It was unreal.

“I felt that I was having a nightmare and that I couldn’t wake up. I have felt like that ever since. Returning home without Mason felt as if my life had ended.”

A post-mortem examination revealed that Mason died from haemolytic uremic syndrome, as a result of E.coli O157 infection.

She added, “I laid down on the bed beside him and it was as if he were sleeping.

“Even though I was lying by the side of him, I still did not feel as if it was Mason. It felt as if I was watching the television programme Casualty.

“It was just like a story off that programme.”

She said in the statement that the funeral was “a blur”.

Ms Mills said she sat with Mason through the night, talking and singing to him. One of his favourite toys, a dinosaur, was put in the coffin, along with family photographs

Ms Mills told the inquiry that her eldest son Chandler, now 10, has suffered ongoing physical and psychological problems as a result of Mason’s death and the outbreak.

His experiences echo that of other children who were infected – more than 150 people, mostly children, living in Bridgend, Caerphilly, Merthyr Tydfil and Rhondda Cynon Taf became ill during the outbreak, which was caused by butcher William Tudor.

Ms Mills, who has another son Cavan – a baby at the time of the outbreak – told the inquiry, “Mr Tudor put greed before the health and safety of our children.”

Stephen Webber, a solicitor with Hugh James, told the inquiry, “So many people think that the suffering is over but there are a number of children with ongoing physical problems and psychological problems – they have become obsessed with hygiene, what they eat and they can’t eat school dinners.

“These problems are ongoing for a number of families and they are unsure about the future. There are a lot of children with parents who are worried.”

The E.coli public inquiry will resume on Monday when it will take evidence from senior figures at the National Public Health Service for Wales

Doctor defends decision not to admit Mason Jones - page 2