Four-year-old Amelie Aust was rushed to hospital with life-threatening sepsis after her mum, Caroline, spotted she wasn’t well. Upon reaching the hospital, Amelie was diagnosed with pneumonia, which had progressed to sepsis.
Caroline believes that trusting her instincts, along with the urgent response from health professionals, saved her daughter’s life.
Amelie had been feeling under the weather for a couple of days: she’d had a high temperature, been vomiting, and was listless. But just a couple of days later, Caroline noticed her daughter was deteriorating. By now, she was making strange noises, couldn’t keep anything down, and was breathing rapidly.
“I just felt something wasn’t right”, Caroline says.
“We phoned our GP, who saw her immediately and within the hour she was at our local hospital and placed in a coma.”
From Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Amelie was blue-lighted to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, who stabalised her as best they could on the journey. Caroline and her family followed behind the ambulance the whole way.
Amelie was immediately taken to the PICU unit, and it was there that Caroline was told her daughter had one lung full of fluid – pneumonia – and sepsis.
“We had heard the word before, but honestly, we didn’t know what it meant or really what the signs were.
“Within the first few hours of Ami being admitted, a consultant said to us that our intuition that something wasn’t right had saved her life. I will forever say to other parents to always trust your gut.”
Amelie remained in hospital for a month, where she had her chest drained twice, multiple x-rays, a blood transfusion, and was administered antibiotics. Her family even had to teach her how to eat again – at one point, she was so tiny she weighed almost the same as their two-year-old brother, Alfie.
Caroline describes it as being “hugely traumatic” for Amelie.
Thankfully, she recovered, and Caroline remains hugely grateful to the teams who treated her daughter.
“I can’t express enough how phenomenal the doctors and nurses were that we encountered during our ordeal. To be that skilled but also so compassionate is truly amazing.
“The doctors at our [GP surgery] knew to immediately send Amelie to hospital and called the ambulance.”
The family also secured a room at the local Ronald MacDonald house so one of them could always be with Amelie while the other stayed at home with Alfie.
Now, Caroline is sharing Amelie’s story to help other parents recognise the signs of sepsis, and urges them to trust their instincts.
“Four years later, Ami is a happy, healthy little girl with no physical sign this ever happened”, Caroline says. “We feel very lucky to be able to share a story with a happy ending.”
