The grieving parents of a five-year-old autistic boy claim their son died after doctors gave him TEN times the correct dose of insulin – after misdiagnosing him with diabetes.
Little Shay Turner was rushed to hospital on March 30 last year but died four days later after he suffered a catastrophic brain injury.
His parents, Laura, 28, and Martyn, 29, claim doctors missed the fact he was suffering from sepsis and gave him a huge amount of insulin by mistake.
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The couple have now launched a crowdfunding appeal to raise £12,000 to pay for solicitors to represent them at Shay’s inquest in October.
Laura, an advertising executive, said: “There are two major failings that we need answers to – the overdose of insulin and what effect that had on him and the missed sepsis.
“So far nobody has told us the truth and we want to know what happened to our son.
“On Good Friday Shay was unwell – he looked tired, he kept saying he couldn’t go to the toilet, he wanted to drink but couldn’t keep any water down and kept being sick.
“I thought he had caught a bug but by the time his dad came home from work Shay looked grey and we decided to go to A&E.”
Laura and Martyn, along with Shay’s nine-year-old brother Finnley, took Shay to Rotherham General Hospital, South Yorks., where he was rushed into the A&E’s resuscitation bay.
Doctors recorded his blood sugar levels as high and diagnosed him as diabetic even though Laura and Martyn, a gas engineer, were convinced this was incorrect.
Laura said: “At this point we were really concerned no-one knew what they were doing. It was obvious Shay was very unwell but it felt like sheer panic at the hospital.
“We were really worried – no-one was telling us what was happening and Shay was in a lot of pain and discomfort.
“I told Martyn to take Finnley home because I knew it didn’t look good.”
Shay – who had been diagnosed with autism just before his fifth birthday – was given insulin but, for two hours, Laura says he was given ten times the standard dose.
The family have since learned insulin is measured per kilogram and should be dispensed between 0.1ml and 0.5ml per kg.
At 18kg, the maximum amount Shay should have been given was 1.8ml Instead he was given 18ml.
Laura, from Rawmarsh, South Yorks., said: “A paediatric consultant came to speak to me around 11pm and said ‘due to the laws of transparency’ they had to tell me about the incorrect dosage.
“I asked him what this meant and he said, ‘I honestly don’t know’.”
Shay began to deteriorate rapidly and eventually became unconsciousness and Laura and Martyn were put in another room.
“It was horrendous – they weren’t telling us anything and we had a nurse keeping guard at the door,” Laura said.
It was decided Shay needed to be moved to Sheffield Children’s Hospital and the Embrace team – a highly specialist transport service for critically ill children – arrived.
They worked on Shay all night to try to stablise him so he could be transferred to Sheffield.
Laura said: “We were told they needed to move him onto a stretcher but even though it was only centimetres, he was so poorly they didn’t know if he would make it.”
Eventually, Shay arrived at Sheffield Children’s Hospital at 8:45am on March 31 and the family met the consultant Rotherham Hospital had been liaising with throughout the night.
Shay’s stomach was incredibly swollen and the consultant said they needed to operate because his lungs and heart were being crushed.
Laura said: “When they opened him up, they discovered his large intestine had died. It was then the surgeon said it could have been sepsis that caused the problem.
“As soon as they removed his intestine, his vitals improved dramatically. Even though he wasn’t conscious and was still on life support, we had some hope.”
But Shay wasn’t out of the woods and needed to stablise so doctors could perform a CT scan to look for any brain damage.
On April 2, following the scan, the consultant confirmed Shay had suffered a catastrophic brain injury and explained the kindest thing to do would be to let him go.
Laura said: “I was adamant that we shouldn’t, that it was the wrong thing.
“But the consultant explained about the level of damage done and I realised it was the only thing we could do.”
Shay’s extended family came to say their goodbyes before, on April 3, Laura and Martyn sat beside their ‘beautiful bright red-haired’ boy and turned the machines off.
Laura said: “He went straight away, he didn’t have any fight left in him anymore.”
Shay’s autopsy report said he died from multiple organ failure from an unknown cause with the possibility of Hirschsprung disease – a condition that is the result of missing nerve cells in the muscles of the colon – leading to a bowel infection and causing sepsis.
The coroner’s report concluded that Shay did not have diabetes.
South Yorkshire Police carried out a ten-month investigation into Shay’s death but Laura said no further action is being taken.
An inquest into his death is due to take place in October.
Speaking about the devastating effect Shay’s death has had on the family, Laura said: “We don’t know how to carry on without him. It’s destroyed our whole lives.
“Finnley is heartbroken – he doesn’t know what to do without his little brother.
“It’s had such a huge affect on all of us and we want somebody to be held accountable.
“Shay was overdosed and he was misdiagnosed at Rotherham General Hospital and it terrifies me that they are still treating people.”
Martyn, who got married to Laura just over a month before Shay’s death, added: “If the sepsis had been picked up at the first stage, we believe Shay would still be here.
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“He’s lost his life and went through the worse pain imaginable. We’re fighting to get the truth.”
A spokesperson for Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Rotherham General Hospital, said: “Our thoughts and sympathies are very much with Shay’s family and our medical director has recently written to them about the serious incident investigation which we are currently undertaking.
“Given an inquest is scheduled for the autumn, we cannot comment further at this time.”
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