A four-year-old boy suddenly died while ‘crying blood’ after complaining about his armpit on a family holiday.
Jaxon was a ‘miracle baby’ after she and her husband tried having a baby for seven years through five rounds of IVF.
MOTHER’S TEARS
Heartbroken mother Sammy Knowles, 40, has shed light on the traumatic last hours of her son Jaxon’s life after he contracted a rare form of meningitis.
Mrs Knowles and her husband John, 38, had taken their young family to Blackpool for a weekend at the seaside in February.
However, when it was time to go home, Jaxon complained about his armpit hurting and suddenly became unwell.
After also saying that he had a tummy ache, Jaxon went to bed after his mother gave him some Calpol to keep his temperature down.
Then he woke up at 5am. The mother told the The Sun: ‘That was when I saw a rash.
‘My first thought was that it was chicken pox and I was devastated for him but when I turned on the lamp next to me, I immediately saw how bad it was.
‘I told my husband that I wanted to go to A&E straightaway and as we were getting dressed his condition got worse.
‘He threw up, then his mouth and tongue began swelling. We immediately called 999 who told us to lay him down but he couldn’t breathe so we had to turn him to his side.
‘It felt like an eternity had passed until emergency responders arrived then the ambulance crews.
‘We were not told anything about it being meningitis until we were in the ambulance where we were told 15 nurses and doctors were waiting in the ICU of Rotherham Hospital.
‘I was in shock as I had not heard anything about meningitis for years.’
THE ‘BLOOD’ CRY
As doctors and nurses worked hard on Jaxon, his rash continued to get worse, turning purple, and he began ‘crying blood’.
The parents were eventually told by doctors that he needed to be put into a coma before they had to restart his heart when it stopped.
But soon after, they were called back into the room and told that he had then died from a bacterial form of meningitis called meningococcal disease.
Meningococcal disease is a life-threatening infection caused by the bacterium neisseria meningitidis.
