A brave Irish girl is still smiling despite losing all four limbs after contracting Strep A infection.
Sophie Lanigan, from Blanchardstown, in Dublin, Ireland was taken to the doctor in December 2022 after having high temperature.
She began having trouble breathing, resulting in the 12-year-old being rushed to hospital with suspected pneumonia.
She was then admitted to the ICU and then placed on a ventilator.
Her family prepared for the worst after doctors told them she had sepsis caused by Strep A.
Sophie had to be transported to CHI Crumlin to be put on a stronger ventilator after going into septic shock and her organs began to fail.
There, she spent the next two weeks fighting for her life. She was finally taken off the ventilator on Christmas Day in 2022.
The little girl woke to the devastating news that the damage to her hands and feet by the disease were irreversible, and she underwent a quadruple amputation.
After months in hospital and multiple setbacks, Sophie was finally able to go home to her family last week according to British Tabloid reports.
Alongside her parents Laura Hughes and Keith Lanigan, she is now facing a very difficult childhood but new pictures shared by her aunt Christina Canavan show the sixth-grade pupil is ‘still smiling’.
‘She is waiting on a bed in (The National Rehabilitation Hospital) Dun Laoghaire,’ Canavan said to Dublin Live.
‘The aim is to get Sophie as mobile as possible for being at home. Renovations will be needed to the house.’
A fundraiser has been set up for her has reportedly gotten more than €132,000.
A statement on the page said: ‘Sophie is the most amazing, strong, determined girl and she battled through again.
‘She is our hero and we are all so unbelievably proud.’
The response from members of the public has so far been amazing, and more than €132,000 have been donated.
