When four-year-old Alice fell poorly, it became one of the most terrifying experiences for her family. Her dad, John, recounts the events and pays thanks for the dedicated care Alice received from everyone involved.

In December, Alice complained of having a headache and feeling dizzy. Within minutes she became unresponsive and, shortly after, she went into a seizure. We called 999 and an ambulance arrived within 10 minutes. After an initial examination by the paramedics, Alice was given some medication to try and bring her out of the seizure, to which she didn’t respond.

Immediately, the paramedic escalated the call to ask for air ambulance support, due to assessing that her condition was critical and that she needed to be treated by specialist crew. The air ambulance critical care team were with us in about seven minutes, which is amazing. They were so professional and worked as a team. Each of them knew their roles and seemed to carry them out to perfection. After they arrived, it felt like everything was under control and everyone knew what they had to do and what the next steps were.

I think their initial concern was that Alice had a bleed on the brain. They placed her in an induced coma, before she was rapidly flown to Bristol Children’s Hospital; a journey by air of around 15 minutes from our home. There, she was met by a ‘crash team’ and sent for scans

Reassuring presence

Advanced Practitioner, Matt, was one of the crew on the air ambulance that day. He was excellent with my wife Lucy during the flight to hospital, keeping her reassured and even doing small acts such as getting Alice’s hand out from the bag and putting Lucy’s hand on hers. He even escorted Lucy into the hospital and stayed with her until the rest of the crew had handed over to the crash team.

In hospital, Alice remained in a coma on the children’s intensive care unit until the doctors were happy for her to be woken up. She underwent a number of tests, including MRI and CT scans, chest scans and EEGs (electroencephalograms), a lumbar puncture and multiple blood tests. Fortunately, everything came back clear so she was transferred to Yeovil Hospital where she remained for five days before being discharged home.

The team within Bristol Children’s Hospital intensive care unit were amazing in providing a critical part of Alice’s first steps to recovery. I’d like to give a special mention to Alice’s nurse Kye who was fantastic at not only providing her with 24-hour care, but providing us, as parents, with the support we needed.

Ongoing support

As soon as Alice returned home, we had support from Chloe, one of the charity’s patient and family liaison nurses. She offered advice and support and, at times, provided the reassurance that we, as a family, needed. She sent the children certificates and was brilliant with them when we came back to visit.

During that visit, we met Matt again, who spent time speaking to the children about the aircraft and answered many questions that we had about the incident. He informed us that the weather conditions were very challenging that day and it took a great deal of skill from the pilot to land the aircraft on the Bristol helipad.

Alice has made a fantastic recovery, but unfortunately the root cause was never fully diagnosed. It is believed to have stemmed from a case of salmonella caused by flood water. Still, to this day, she voluntarily takes part in EEG research, to enable case studies to be carried out and examined, as she was identified as a person of interest.

We feel incredibly lucky to be able to share our positive story. Having to use the air ambulance has opened our eyes to how the service is run and that they are funded by public donations. As such, this has made us want to do more to give back to such a great charity, without whom our story may not have had the same outcome.

---

View from the Crew: Matt, Advanced Practitioner in Critical Care

There are certain cases that stay with you; Alice and her family’s story is certainly one of those for me and I can remember how unbelievably calm John and Lucy were at the time. Alice had a prolonged, life-threatening seizure that continued despite the rapid, excellent care from our ambulance service colleagues Adam, Neil and Dan. She needed an emergency anaesthetic to control her seizure; Adam, Neil and Dan recognised this and started preparing for it before we arrived, which meant we could deliver the care Alice needed as soon as possible.

An emergency anaesthetic usually happens in hospital but is a critical intervention in prolonged seizures to stop the seizure and protect the patient’s brain from further injury. It is only delivered outside of hospital by critical care teams. In Alice’s case, we were able to deliver the anaesthetic and protect her brain approximately 60 minutes earlier than if she had been transferred immediately to the local hospital.

There are many different causes of prolonged seizures. In Alice’s case the cause wasn’t immediately clear, but we were worried it could be a bleed, stroke or infection. All of these would require specialist investigation and care in the regional paediatric centre (Bristol Royal Hospital for Children). We were able to bypass the local hospital and transfer Alice directly from the scene to Bristol by air, reducing the time to specialist care by several hours.

We provided additional anti-seizure medicine and antibiotics on the way, to help protect Alice’s brain from further injury; these treatments are also usually only provided in hospital. There were some challenging weather systems that day, but thanks to Scott and Jack’s incredible skill and experience, they were able to navigate these and land safely on the rooftop helipad. Alice was seen by paediatric specialists a few minutes after.

We were all really pleased to hear that Alice made such a strong recovery. We’re hugely grateful to our colleagues from scene to hospital discharge and privileged to have played a part in Alice’s story and positive recovery.

---

Next: Tim's Story