Angel of Death (8 page)

Hazel remembers: ‘Anthony was screaming a lot and they thought it was because Patrick was ill. He was missing him so much he was playing up.’

Eventually, both children were discharged and, once he was home, Patrick’s fits stopped altogether. Hazel often wondered what had happened to cause her son to stop breathing on Ward Four. Later, she would take Patrick back to Grantham and Kesteven Hospital for a check-up and find out more about the night her baby almost died. She would discover that his heart had stopped beating not once, but twice, in the space of four hours. But
even then nobody could tell Hazel Elstone why it had happened.

At the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham questions were being asked about the high number of seriously ill children who were being transferred from Ward Four at Grantham.

A number of doctors expressed concern. Five children had been rushed thirty miles along the A52 from Grantham to Nottingham for specialist care in less than two months – normally the number they would expect in an entire year. All of them had made a recovery but the doctors at the QMC were sufficiently worried to approach a senior consultant.

What on earth, they wanted to know, could be happening?

It took the death of Claire Peck finally to bring detectives onto Ward Four at the Grantham and Kesteven Hospital.

Three children, Liam Taylor, Timothy Hardwick and Becky Phillips had died. Eight other youngsters, Kayley Desmond, Paul Crampton, Bradley Gibson, Henry Chan, Katie Phillips, Christopher Peasgood, Christopher King and Patrick Elstone had been a whisker away from losing their lives; yet Ward Four still remained open.

But after the death of Claire – child number twelve in the catalogue of tragedy – attitudes were to change.

It had been a routine case. Claire was an only child, blonde-haired, bright eyed, just beginning to talk and find her feet. She was fifteen months old and asthmatic.

Her life hadn't been in real danger when she was admitted to the ward on the afternoon of 22 April. Claire was gasping for breath as Sue and David Peck drove fifteen miles to the hospital from their home on the outskirts of Newark, but the
family doctor had said twenty-four hours would bring a remarkable recovery in her condition.

Within four hours Claire Peck was dead. Sue would always remember the specialist sitting bewildered, with his head in his hands, shattered from the effort of trying to save Claire, telling her it should not have happened. At the time Sue didn't understand what he meant.

Hairdresser Sue Peck, a friendly girl with a ready grin, had been married four years when Claire was born in the maternity ward at Grantham; she weighed 61bs 8ozs. She was surrounded by love, adored by David and their relatives and friends who would make a habit of calling in just to catch sight of her smile.

When Claire was fifteen months old she suddenly started to wheeze at night and Sue and David were plunged into despair. She would cough for hours on end, unable to sleep. The doctor diagnosed bronchiolitis and prescribed a Ventolin inhaler, saying it was too soon to know whether Claire was going to be asthmatic. By 18 April the wheezing was no better and the doctor declared she would have to be admitted to hospital.

On Ward Four nurses placed Claire on a nebuliser to clear her airways. Within half an hour she was 100% better. Claire remained in hospital until 20 April, improving hour by hour. A doctor admitted that Claire was asthmatic ‘to a slight degree', and sent her home, advising Sue to administer a course of Ventolin syrup and use the inhaler when necessary.

The following morning, 21 April, was a beautiful spring day. It was to be Claire's last full day at home, the day before she died, and Sue and David would remember it vividly. They took Claire for a walk in the country, carrying her some of the time, then watching her proudly as she tried to put one step in front of the other and walk.

They called in to see Sue's grandma, popped in at her brother's home, then went home to put Claire in the bath before bed. ‘It had been a beautiful day, lovely and warm, and we had had a wonderful time together.'

Claire woke coughing at 1.45am and, when Sue phoned the doctor, he told her to administer twenty puffs of Ventolin and some syrup. Claire recovered, played with her toys for an hour, then fell asleep. At 4.30am David left for work. At 6.15am Sue woke to the sound of her little girl coughing once more. The doctor was at the house before 8am, with a portable nebuliser, returning a second time at 2pm, but the second time it made no difference and, when David took Claire to the surgery, the doctor said she would have to go back to the hospital straightaway.

David left the surgery with the doctor's voice ringing in his ears. ‘He said that, in twenty-four hours, there would be a remarkable recovery in her condition.' Sue climbed behind the wheel of the couple's Vauxhall Astra for the journey to Ward Four. David cradled Claire in his arms in the back seat as she gasped for air.

Sue was desperately worried. ‘I was frightened she
would die. I thought perhaps we should have gone to the hospital earlier than we had. She was trying to cry, but she couldn't get enough air to make any noise. She was just moaning, ruttling and gasping.'

In Ward Four Claire was placed on a nebuliser, but it made no difference and, when they tried to take her blood pressure, Claire's arm turned blue. They attached a heart monitor but the machine didn't work.

Nurse Allitt had been sitting at a desk as Claire arrived. Sue recognised her from the previous visit and remembered her as being very unfriendly towards them.

‘I had run out of nappies and Nurse Allitt had brought them in. She didn't say anything when she gave them to me, she just slammed them down on the table and walked off. All the other nurses had made a habit of picking Claire up, playing with her and, when she was in the bath, they would come into the bathroom and splash her and tip water over her head. Claire loved it. But once, when she was in the bath, Nurse Allitt came past and just walked by, and ignored Claire. I remember clear as day turning to Claire, and saying: “We don't care if she doesn't want to talk to you, sweetheart …” so when I saw her that day I knew I didn't like her.'

Sue finds it hard to think of Claire's final few hours without shedding a tear. Time has done little to ease the pain. The nightmare began with specialist Dr Nelson Porter announcing that he proposed to insert a tube down Claire's throat to open her airways. Sue couldn't bear the prospect
of watching and handed Claire to a nurse. It was 4.55pm, and Sue and David were told the routine procedure wouldn't take too long. They left Claire in the treatment room and walked to the TV lounge to wait for news.

The medical team prepared to give Claire a new drug which had to be administered in such precise amounts that the duty doctor went in search of paediatrician Dr Porter for guidance, leaving Claire in the treatment room with Nurse Allitt and another nurse.

While he was gone Nurse Allitt agreed to stay while her colleague went down the corridor to tell Claire's parents what was happening. Within seconds – even before the nurse had time to reach David and Sue Peck – Beverley Allitt cried for help from the room. She was shouting ‘Arrest, Arrest.'

And when other nurses and doctors dashed to Claire's bedside they found she had suffered a respiratory failure and was having trouble breathing. They gave her oxygen and Claire recovered quickly.

David and Sue were on the verge of going to see what had happened when the ward sister, Barbara Barker, appeared. The news wasn't good – the medical team was still working to improve her condition.

Claire's parents asked only one question: ‘Is she going to be all right …?' The Sister didn't say yes, and she didn't say no. Instead, she told David and Sue she hoped Claire would recover. It wasn't the answer Claire's parents had wanted to hear.

Sue recalls: ‘We were worried when she gave us our answer. Up to then we had never really imagined that she was going to die. My mum and dad had arrived by this time and they had expected to see Claire recovered.'

As the fight to save Claire continued in the treatment room Sue, David and her parents paced the TV lounge, desperately anxious for reassurance. They lost all track of time.

In the treatment room Dr Porter finally administered the drug himself and left Claire in the care of Nurse Allitt who was accompanied for a short period by another nurse until the Ward Sister told them it didn't need two of them there. The second nurse had only just left when Nurse Allitt cried out again from the treatment room: ‘Arrest.' This time Claire had suffered cardiac failure.

Dr Porter and Sister Barker had just asked Claire's parents if they would like to see their little girl. Her condition was now stable and they had succeeded in stemming the attack with drugs, they told them. If Claire remained stable for the next twenty minutes then she would be transferred to the Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham where facilities were better.

David and Sue were on their way to the treatment room to see Claire – but they never made it. As they approached the door they heard a nurse shouting: ‘Come quick'.

The Pecks, overcome with fear, returned to the TV room. Again they asked the Sister if Claire was going to die. ‘I hope not,' she replied. ‘Were things
getting worse?' asked Sue. ‘Yes,' admitted the Sister, ‘they are, but the staff are doing everything they can.'

With Claire at crisis point David asked if they could see their daughter because, if she was going to die, they wanted to be with her. As Sue and David walked into the treatment room they were stunned by what they found. David closes his eyes as he recalls the scene. ‘The crash team was still working on Claire, they were giving her heart massage, electric shock and injections into her heart. She was surrounded by people, Beverley Allitt amongst them. They were all sweating, busy, working flat out as though they had been trying for a long time to save her.

‘When they saw us they all stood back to let us look. I remember Sue saying: “Stop it. I think she's had enough.” I wanted them to leave her as well.'

David recalls: ‘Allitt was sitting right behind us, all she did was stare at us, she just watched and listened.'

Sue broke down and cried as she remembered the sight. ‘Claire was dead, it was obvious, but they hadn't given up hope. I suppose there was a one in a thousand chance they might pull her back, and they still wanted to carry on.'

David still lives with the memory. ‘We gave Claire a kiss. She was laid on a white table with a light shining on her. She had a lot of holes in her chest where they had injected her. She was very pale, almost white. They said they would carry on, and they asked us to go back to the TV room, but
we realised we had lost her. Until then we hadn't really thought she would go …'

In the next cubicle Sue Phillips was sitting at baby Katie's bedside when Nurse Allitt walked in to tell her that Claire was dead.

Sue Phillips said: ‘She just walked in and started to talk. She just wanted to tell me every detail of what had happened. My Becky was dead, and there I was with Katie, and I couldn't stop her talking. She said the worst bit was when Sue Peck wanted to hold on to Claire in her arms, and wouldn't let go. She wouldn't believe she was dead.

‘She was asking Dr Porter to prove that Claire wasn't alive any more. Bev said Claire still had all the monitors on, and Dr Porter had to turn each one off so she could see it was running in a straight line and there was no sign of life.

‘He showed her the straight line where the heartbeat should have been and only then did Sue Peck finally agree to let Claire go. Bev was in tears and she told me she had to tell someone. She just had to speak to somebody about what had happened. It was an awful time because Becky had only been dead for seventeen days.

‘But Bev was so upset. There were tears rolling down her face.' The truth was very different. Sue Peck had not asked Dr Porter to prove Claire was dead. Neither had the doctor pointed to the straight line on the monitor to prove there was no sign of life. But at the time, Sue Phillips had no reason to doubt the nurse she trusted as a friend.
Nurse Allitt should have gone off duty, but she told Sue Phillips that her pal and housemate Tracy Jobson was working and she could not face going home to an empty house.

While Allitt was in tears in the cubicle with Sue Phillips, Claire's heartbroken parents collapsed, sobbing, in the TV lounge nearby. It was around 8.15pm. Ten minutes later Dr Porter, soaking wet with perspiration from the effort of trying to save Claire, appeared and told them he was terribly sorry but their little girl was dead. There was nothing more he could do.

The couple walked back to the treatment room to be with Claire. Asthma had killed their little girl, or so they thought. Yet when they met Dr Porter he seemed utterly bewildered by the tragedy.

Sue Peck remembers: ‘He was just sitting there with his head in his hands, and he said: “This should never have happened.”' He told the Pecks that Claire's death was a million to one chance, a freak occurrence he could not explain. ‘He told us that children die from asthma when they are untreated. In his opinion the chances were a million to one that a child could die while actually being treated in hospital. He was very distraught.'

It was Sue Peck's parents who began to ask questions about Claire's death. Why had the doctor said Claire shouldn't have died? What had he meant by that? They didn't understand. Sue and David were confused, too, but the specialist had told them it had been a million to one chance. ‘We simply thought we had been very unlucky,' said Sue.

Still reeling from the shock of it all the Pecks were asked to stay at the hospital to meet the coroner's officer.

The hospital chaplain, the Rev. Shelton, who had conducted Liam Taylor's funeral service at the crematorium and buried Becky Phillips in his churchyard at Manthorpe, arrived and tried to comfort them.