Flesh-eating bug hit girl,6
Bouncing back from health battle
Quick-thinking NHS Lanarkshire staff have been praised for saving the life of a little girl who was struck by a flesh-eating bug.
Katie Groome (6), was placed in a medically-induced coma and had emergency surgery after developing deadly necrotising fasciitis following chickenpox.
The youngster battled through hallucinations, septicaemia, kidney failure and heart problems – and is facing plastic surgery after medics had to cut away part of her skin.
Now though the bubbly schoolgirl is bouncing back from her ordeal – which even included an operation on her sixth birthday.
The little one’s mum, also called Katie, is a staff nurse at Udston Hospital in Hamilton, and is now fundraising to thank the colleagues who saved her little girl’s life.
She said: “Katie benefited from great treatment at Wishaw General and the Sick Kids, and I’m raising money for the Glasgow hospital because they are now especially close to my heart after saving my daughter.
“After Katie got chickenpox I noticed a swelling on her right shoulder. She had a really high temperature and was very lethargic. Our GP visited and called an ambulance. The paramedic was so concerned he sent out a code red message.”
Katie said the quick thinking of staff at Wishaw General Hospital played a key role when a one-in-a-million chance saw her daughter develop necrotising fasciitis.
Little Katie was aged just five when she was taken to Wishaw General. Staff struggled to insert a tube into the girl’s veins because they were collapsing. She began to be sick and attempts to give her intravenous antibiotics didn’t work.
She was then transferred from Wishaw General in a medically-induced coma to Glasgow’s Royal Hospital for Children – where Lanarkshire children are often transferred for specialist treatment – for life-saving surgery.
Katie said: “She began to go into kidney failure and develop heart problems so the doctors called for the specialist team from Glasgow. Katie had started hallucinating and she had to be taken to theatre to be placed in an induced coma before she could be transferred to the children’s hospital.
“In intensive care she developed septicaemia and I saw a small purple mark on her shoulder. That was when they realised it was necrotising fasciitis.
“They had to cut away the top of her arm, an area across her chest and a bit of her back.”
Little Katie had to have skin grafted from her upper thigh to help repair the damage. She will need more plastic surgery as she grows to stretch the skin.
Her mum added: “She was in hospital for five weeks including having an operation on her sixth birthday.”
The bubbly schoolgirl, a pupil at St Brendan’s Primary in Motherwell, is now bouncing back from her ordeal in December.
Her mum, dad Thomas and older sisters Andrea and Anneliese say they’re now determined to give something back to the NHS through an upcoming fundraising night.
They are urging people to support their fundraising drive by buying tickets for an event at Wishaw and District Ex-servicemen’s Institute on Friday, November 25. And they are also hoping local businesses will donate raffle prizes.
Gillian Corbett, Wishaw General’s chief of nursing services, said: “It is wonderful to see Katie recovering so well after the excellent care she received from both our staff and colleagues in Glasgow.”
For more information on tickets and donations contact Katie on groomekatie@gmail.com or 07949 986219.