Mum tells of Mason's harrowing words

Mar 6 2008 By Madeleine Brindley, Media Wales

MASON Jones told his mother he was dying as he was admitted to a specialist children's hospital with kidney failure.

In an emotional statement to the E.coli public inquiry, Ms Mills described how her five-year-old son died on October 4, 2005, just over two weeks after he first became ill.

She also spoke of her belief that butcher William Tudor, who caused the E.coli O157 outbreak in the South Wales valleys, put greed before the safety of children.

Mason was admitted to hospital during the evening of September 25 - its name has been anonymised for the inquiry - but he was transferred to an English children's hospital, with specialist facilities, within hours because his kidneys were failing.

In her statement to the inquiry, Ms Mills, a hairdresser, who has two other sons - Chandler and Cavan - said, "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 therefore 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.

"This night was the worst of my life."

Mason suffered a serious fit before he was taken to theatre for a second operation on September 27 and was admitted to intensive care that evening, 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 father Nathan Jones that Mason had run into problems and could die. The pair 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, said, "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 hemolytic uremic syndrome, as a result of E.coli O157 infection.

Ms Mills also told the inquiry that her eldest son Chandler, 10, who also had E.coli poisoning, has suffered ongoing physical and psychological problems as a result of Mason's death and the outbreak.