Two-year-old girl dies with undiagnosed heart condition just hours after being sent home from hospital with tonsillitis by doctors
Little Scarlett Walker was put to bed after being given antibiotics but tragically never woke up
A TWO-YEAR-OLD girl who died from a viral infection just hours after being sent home from hospital was suffering from an undiagnosed heart condition.
Little Scarlett Veronica Walker, from Westhoughton in Bolton, Greater Manchester, was diagnosed with tonsillitis but doctors were unaware she had heart problems, an inquest into her death heard.
The tot been unwell for a number of days when her parents took her to A&E having previously been diagnosed with a viral infection by her GP.
An inquest in Bolton was told that her body had been weakened because of unknown damage to her heart, which led her to succumb to tonsillitis.
In the days before her death she had been having little to eat or drink, was pale, cold and not her 'usual, happy self'. At one point her mother found her in her cot with blue lips.
A week after her symptoms first began, Scarlett was taken to Royal Bolton Hospital A&E where, after a three-hour wait, her parents Megan Burns and Leon Walker, both 22, said she was diagnosed with tonsillitis and given antibiotics and numbing spray.
She was taken home and put to bed but later that night she was found unresponsive in her bed. She was taken back to hospital by ambulance but efforts to resuscitate her were not successful.
A post mortem examination revealed that damage to her heart made her more 'susceptible' to an adverse reaction to the infection.
On February 17 this year, Scarlett fell ill at nursery and was vomiting. The inquest heard that her family assumed that it was some form of a bug.
The family decided to take the toddler to the GP on February 22 and she was diagnosed with a viral infection. She was then taken back to the surgery the next morning and it was thought that she was suffering from a throat ulcer and was sent home with medication.
By February 24 her mother was at home with Scarlett and noted that her lips were blue. Attempts were made to contact the GP but a decision was made to take her to the hospital.
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At the Royal Bolton Hospital Scarlett was examined at 5.30pm. She was then sent home with medication to treat tonsillitis.
Miss Burns said: "Scarlett spent the last week of her life asleep, a zombie on the couch. My little girl loved to play and would scream at us we turned the TV off but she didn't want to do anything.
"When we got home (from hospital) she was tucked up at around 6:30pm. She hadn't vomited that day but had been sick the night before.
"At 11:30pm she woke up cranky so we gave her some spray. She woke again at 12:30am wanting me and came into the lounge where I was. I heard her toddling down through the hall way.
"She went back to bed with her dad and wanted to lie on the floor which was something she had started to do and the next thinks I could hear funny noises and it's then the ambulance was called.
"Leon picked her up from the floor and came into me and said 'she's making funny noises, something is not right'.
"Her eyes were a little bit open and her jaw was moving, she was making this weird noise and was not breathing. I scooped her up and ran to put her on the floor and tried doing CPR. I told Leon to call an ambulance and Leon took over CPR.
"She was my first child and was born at 10:25 on September 2013. She was a fit and healthy baby and had no illnesses.
"About the time she was one year old she was given an inhaler. She had a bit of a cough and the doctors said 'she's too young to diagnose but just as a precaution we will give you an inhaler'.
"When she was two she went back to have a check up and she was given the all clear."
Pathologist, Dr Gemma Petts said Scarlett died from a viral infection. She said: "One of the really significant findings was that Scarlett's heart was very enlarged, this is quite unusual. There were changes on the inside of the heart that could almost be described as scarring.
"It can be because you have had a viral infection and you are unwell, it can be because you have an underlying disorder. There can also be reasons that we just don't know.
"Unfortunately we didn't find a DNA reason to explain why it was, so I can't give you a reason to explain those changes but they were significant.
"The actual cause of death is the laryngotracheobronchitis, that's a viral infection if the upper respiratory tracts. That itself being the cause of death is rare but it's not unheard of.
"Young children are quite vulnerable to flu and often if there's an underlying problem our concerns were that problem with her heart may have made her more susceptible to having an adverse reaction.
"It is likely there was an underlying condition that weakened Scarlett to this infection. That relates to the findings in the heart and our feeling that the reason Scarlett succumbed to the infection was due to the fact that her heart was not normal for a child of her age.
She went back to bed with her dad and wanted to lie on the floor which was something she had started to do and the next thinks I could hear funny noises and it's then the ambulance was called
Megan Burns
"I'm not able to say with certainty but it's unlikely the problems with her heart were from a short period of illness.
"It doesn't appear to have been a defect causing any day-to-day difficulties until he became unwell. Her having contracted this virus is likely to have suppressed her ability to fight off the infection.
"The changes in her heart would not have affected her immune system they would have affected the way her body coped when under stress.";
Assistant Coroner, Timothy Brennand said: "Taking your child twice to the GP and then to A&E I don't think any parent could have done any more.
"No parent could have set out in a more objective and comprehensive way. They have done two very long and detailed statements and the court is very grateful to them because they set out everything that they have done."