Sammie Fallon, a 17-year-old college student from Newcastle, visited her doctor in March 2008 complaining of flu-like symptoms. She struggled to stand up and was aching all over.
She was sent to hospital where it took doctors two weeks and a bone marrow biopsy to finally diagnose Sammie with hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), a rare autoimmune disease.
She immediately began receiving chemotherapy and intravenous antibiotics through her neck. After two weeks of chemotherapy doctors noticed pus oozing from her now swollen hip, from where the bone marrow sample had been taken.
A swab revealed that Sammie had contracted MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, which she had caught in the hospital. She was quickly moved to her own room and became delirious.
Staphylococcus aureus bacteria are normally present on healthy people yet the bacteria can cause an infection if it enters the body through a cut or a catheter. MRSA is a strain of Staph resistant to several widely used antibiotics, making it more difficult to treat.
Doctors decided to remove the intravenous antibiotic line in her neck because, like her hip, the area had become infected with MRSA. Within an hour Sammie had fitted and stopped breathing.
Her mother Sue watched as doctors fought to bring her back – and then put her in an induced coma and moved her to intensive care.
Over the following days her kidneys shut down and Sue was told that the antibiotics were not working. On Friday she learnt that there was just a 20% chance her daughter would survive.
Doctors told Sue the HLH was under control but that the MRSA was not, because the antibiotics were not working.
That morning doctors tried in vain to squeeze bags of blood into Sammie as her blood pressure was so low, but she died from major organ failure, five weeks after arriving in hospital and three weeks after undergoing a routine bone marrow biopsy.
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