Girl, 13, asked mum devastating question before being killed by sepsis

A 13-year-old girl was left wincing and squirming in unbearable pain moments before dying from sepsis, an inquest heard.

Chloe Longster woke up with pain in her ribs and cold-like symptoms on November 28, 2022.

She was taken to Kettering General Hospital, Northampton, and admitted to a children’s ward before being taken to intensive care where she died the following morning.

Her mother, Louise, said Chloe’s pain relief was delayed and her death was ‘completely preventable’.

She said: ‘Chloe asked if she could be put to sleep because it was unbearable. I remember thinking how pale and clammy she looked.

‘It is harrowing to see your own child in so much pain. She was clock-watching constantly.

‘She knew when her paracetamol and ibuprofen were due and it was always delayed. It was like we were chasing her pain rather than getting on top of it.

‘Chloe asked me if she was going to die. It is haunting that the 13-year-old was the one that was right. It’s devastating.’

Louise said she heard her daughter’s chest ‘crackling’ as she lay in the hospital bed, which she flagged to a nurse.

The mother said she felt that she was being a ‘nuisance’ and ‘dramatic’ because she was trying to get more help for Chloe.

It was not until Chloe was put in a side room and diagnosed with influenza A that it was ‘taken seriously or acknowledged how much pain she was in’, Louise told the court.

Chloe’s blood pressure was recorded for the first time on the system nearly eight hours after she arrived at the hospital.

A&E consultant Dr Marwan Gamaleldin saw her three or four times before she was transferred to the paediatric ward and believed she had a chest infection at the time.

He said: ‘It was already flagged that pain was the main thing. She did not come across as struggling to breathe.

‘The pain was described as severe so the next logical step was to jump to morphine.

‘She had four doses of pain relief with three different medications. I appreciate that maybe it was not enough, but it was four doses of pain relief.’

Dr Gamaleldin said that in the two-hour period that he observed Chloe, he ‘did not think’ that she had sepsis as she had none of the mandatory signs.

He said her chest X-ray showed ‘consolidation’ on her lower left lung, where there is solid material rather than air, which suggested an infection.

Louise said the scan looked ‘terrifying’ and Chloe’s lungs were not symmetrical.

Nurse Tricia Martinez triaged Chloe when she arrived at the hospital, but she had only recently joined the paediatric ward.

She told the court that the girl looked in ‘agony’ when she arrived in A&E so she ‘escalated’ the issue and asked for the V-ray, but did not tick one of the boxes on a sepsis screening document.

She said: ‘The fault on my part was that I was not able to complete the sepsis form or go back to it after escalating.

‘During the time that I saw her, something within said that there is something wrong with this child.

‘We can only suggest or say she has possibly this or that, but the diagnosis will be given by the doctor.’

The inquest continues.

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