Angel of Death

by John Askill

  At 2pm the flashing green light began to slow and the ticking began to fade. Chris turned to Joanne and said: ‘I think he’s going. We told Liam we loved him.’

  They had been waiting seven and a half hours, holding their baby in turns. Suddenly Liam took three final deep breaths and the red light flashed on. Only after he had died, when they were absolutely sure he had gone, did they call in the hospital staff who confirmed that Liam was dead. A nurse gently placed baby Liam in a Moses basket, put his hands together and wrapped his little fingers around a tiny posy of small white flowers.

  Bewildered by all that had happened Chris and Joanne drove home to the house where Liam’s bottle still lay waiting for his next feed.

  With Liam gone his parents wanted the answer to only one question. What had caused their little boy to stop breathing so suddenly and without warning, recover briefly and then die in the space of a few short hours? In her torment Joanne was prepared to consider the most bizarre theories. ‘I even wondered if it was something to do with me warming Liam’s milk in the microwave oven. I’d been scratched by a rabbit during the pregnancy, and I even thought about that and wondered.’

  The hospital asked the heartbroken parents for their permission to perform a post mortem to establish the cause of Liam’s death and, anxious to help find a reason, Chris agreed. The death certificate, issued by Dr Nanayakkara, had specified pneumonia and suspected septicaemia, but the post mortem, which was carried out under the supervision of the coroner, came to a different conclusion. The pathologist, Dr Terry Marshall, decided Liam had suffered an ‘infarction’ of the heart; effectively, the muscles of the heart had died.

  The coroner’s officer, Maurice Stonebridge-Foster, relayed the verdict to Chris and Joanne. He had done his duty and there was now no reason why Liam’s funeral couldn’t take place. Still desperate for an explanation Chris made an appointment to meet Dr Marshall.

  Over a cup of tea in the hospital canteen the pathologist told Chris he did not know what had caused Liam’s heart to die. ‘He told me it was the sort of thing you would expect to happen to a middle-aged or old person who’d been a drinker and smoker all his life. He simply couldn’t explain it happening to an eight-week-old baby boy.’

  Chris spent an hour talking to the pathologist but went home with all his questions still unanswered. A night or two later he watched a TV documentary about heart attacks. Afterwards, Chris phoned the programme makers to ask: ‘Have you ever heard of a little baby being killed by a heart attack?’ They, too, were at a loss to explain why Liam had died. After all, they said, it was virtually unknown for the muscles of a baby’s heart to die. It was terribly sad, but they couldn’t help any more.

  Dr Nanayakkara was so disturbed that he wrote to the coroner saying that he was unhappy with the finding of the post mortem. He told Chris that he was sure that it must be something else. He wanted a child pathologist called in to perform a second post mortem. ‘He was frustrated and annoyed because they wouldn’t let him study the findings on which the original result had been based.’

  Chris and Joanne were resigned to the fact that they might never know what had really happened to their baby on Ward Four.

  Liam was cremated on Friday, 1 March at Grantham. It seemed right that Ian Shelton, the chaplain who’d whispered words of comfort when Liam was close to death, should conduct the short service.

  Liam’s ashes were buried the next day at the parish church in Great Gonerby on the hill above the town. A white, marble headstone, carved with a sleeping teddy bear, marks his tiny grave. The epitaph, carved in the headstone, reads:

  Liam James Taylor

  Pudding Pants

  Died 23rd February, 1991

  Aged seven weeks

  Love you hundreds

  Mummy, Daddy and Jamie

  Little Child Come Unto Me

  If events on Ward Four had ended there, the real cause of Liam’s death would probably have remained undetected. Nothing had come to light that could explain why he had suffered such a massive heart attack.

  3. Timothy – ‘My Special Boy’

  Then, on 5 March, just three days after Liam had been buried, another child died on Ward Four.

  Timothy Hardwick, the second victim, was eleven years old but he was just as helpless as baby Liam. He’d been born with severe brain damage and had never been able to talk, see or walk. In many ways he, too, was still a baby like Liam, incapable of questioning his treatment.

  His life had been tragic from the beginning. Mother Helen and father Robert, thirty-six, longed for a son. Helen already had a healthy six-year-old daughter, Elaine, when she found out that she was pregnant again; a scan revealed it was a boy, the child that would make their family complete.

  The Hardwicks were thrilled and Helen, at thirty-four, was full of energy and vitality, eager for the birth. The pregnancy was uneventful in the early stages but, with only a fortnight to go, Helen fell seriously ill and had to undergo delicate surgery to remove fluid from her brain. The operation was a success and there was no panic, no drama, when Timothy was delivered by caesarian section at the Peel Street Hospital for Women in Nottingham on 25 January 1980. He was a bonny little boy, perfect in every way, or so it seemed.

  The operation and subsequent birth had taken their toll on Helen and it was decided she would need time to regain her strength before going home to care for Timothy. She was transferred to a convalescence hospital at Bulwell on the outskirts of Nottingham but, as Helen began to recover, excited at the prospect of being at home with her baby, she suddenly, and without warning, suffered a stroke.

  When she came round the left side of her body was paralysed. Helen didn’t know what had happened; only that she had lost all the feeling in her face, left arm and leg. Gently, the doctors broke the news that she would never be the same again. The stroke had left her crippled and epileptic. Helen would have to spend the rest of her life confined to a wheelchair, only able to walk a few steps unaided. In the end Robert would be forced to take redundancy from his job as a railway guard to look after his wife.

  Timothy was not to escape the tragedy of his birth. He had been a beautiful baby, outwardly perfect, with a smile that would melt hearts in the years to come. But, as the weeks turned into months, it became obvious there was something wrong and the doctors said they would have to carry out tests.

  The news, when it came, was devastating. Helen was told that her little boy had been born severely handicapped. He was epileptic. Worse still, the doctors found Timothy was suffering from cerebral palsy and blindness.

  Helen had every right to feel bitter; lesser women would have crumbled in the face of such an appalling tragedy. But no, she said, Timothy was a gift from God, important and wonderful to her.

  From the outset it was clear that Helen could not bring up the baby she loved. She wanted to care for Timothy from her wheelchair, but it was just too much. So, at five weeks, Helen and Robert placed their son in the care of the county council. At first he went to live with foster parents, but even they could not cope. Timothy was moved to Cordwell House, a children’s home at Southwell, twenty miles from Nottingham. Despite his enormous problems he flourished and Helen and Robert were proud as they watched him grow.

  Helen, slightly built with long, dark hair, smiled as she recalled his love of music and passion for disco dancing in his wheelchair. He had been so good at it he’d won first prize in a competition for disabled children. He couldn’t see or speak, but Timothy at least could hear. And his face would light up at the sound of music.

  ‘Some people might expect me to feel bitter. After all, before he was born, I was just a normal, healthy woman. As a girl I’d passed my ballet exams with honours, then I’d worked full time in my father’s shop, I’d always been full of life, but the stroke left me an epileptic and handicapped.

  ‘But I don’t blame Timothy for any of this. I’d always wanted a son and when they did the scan, and said I was expecting a little boy, I was absolutely th
rilled.’

  Helen would never know what had caused the stroke. ‘The doctors could never say for certain. It could have been the birth that had brought it on, or the operation I’d had a couple of weeks before Timothy was born. Nobody has ever been able to say.’

  Timothy would never talk, or be able to put one foot in front of the other and walk. The doctors told Helen and Robert he was blind. ‘They told us he could not see, but we always wondered because he used to blink when a camera flashed. He had all those problems, yet he was a beautiful little boy. He was a gift from God and a joy to us, despite everything.’

  As the years passed Helen and Robert remained close to Timothy, never missing his birthday or Christmas, travelling to the home to join in the fun. Often he would be brought to their home for day trips. Elaine loved her younger brother. They were the best times for Helen and Robert.

  ‘Timothy gave so much of himself to everyone. I felt honoured to be his mum. He loved swimming. They had a pool at the home and he really liked splashing about with the other children. He loved horseriding, too. It was hard for him to sit up straight when he was on the horse’s back, sometimes he would fall forward and bump his nose on the saddle. He used to love the smell of the horses and, when they trotted, he used to laugh out loud.’

  Timothy’s problems didn’t extend to his appetite. He loved Weetabix, beans and hot chocolate. Each day staff would take him to the Applegate School in Newark. He loved the journey, bouncing up and down in the minibus. At school he made friends.

  Though he was now eleven Timothy could do little for himself. He still couldn’t feed himself or go alone to the toilet. But the staff at the school, and at the home, were rewarded. Helen explained: ‘He couldn’t do anything for himself, but Timothy had this way of giving love to others. One of the staff at the home used to take him to church every Sunday. He loved the organ music and the singing. I’ll always remember her saying that, of all the children she had known, Timothy was the one she felt she could adopt.’

  Timothy had a habit of smiling at the sound of his mother’s voice. ‘He couldn’t talk, couldn’t walk, he was brain damaged and they said he couldn’t see either. He suffered from cerebral palsy and he was always in and out of hospital. He had a lot to bear but, for all that, he was a lovely little boy. He used to smile a lot. He always recognised my voice and would grin when he heard it.’

  Staff at the children’s home recorded Timothy’s progress in a scrapbook. They filled it with photographs of him splashing in the pool, riding the ponies and playing with the other children at the home.

  Alongside the pictures were poems Helen had written about her boy. Timothy was five years old when Helen sat quietly and penned one such poem, titled, simply, Our Special Son’.

  Oh Timothy my special boy

  How I’d love to see you more,

  To see you laugh, and walk and talk perhaps,

  Is that too much for a mum to ask?

  My Heart cries out for you, my lad,

  And so does the heart of your poor dad.

  A year later Helen wrote ‘My Timothy’s Song’.

  I wonder what would be my little Timmy’s song

  If only he could speak?

  Would it be a happy one,

  And one that gladdens everyone?

  Perhaps, it would just sadden one to think he cannot see,

  But to hear my little boy come up to me and say,

  ‘Don’t worry mum,

  ‘I’m happy, ’cos I know I’m loved by everyone.

  ‘Even tho’ I cannot see

  ‘Jesus is with me every day

  ‘And night-time when I sleep.’

  On Sunday, 3 March 1991, Timothy was brought home by minibus to spend a day with his parents and sister. The family enjoyed a walk in the park and Timothy was his usual self. It was to be the last time Robert and Helen would see their son alive.

  Two days later, on the afternoon of 5 March, Timothy suffered an epileptic fit while at school and was taken to hospital in Newark. There was no night shift on duty there so Timothy was transferred to Grantham and Kesteven General Hospital. Nurse Beverley Allitt, the young, newly qualified SEN who had tended baby Liam Taylor, was in the third week of her six-month contract. Liam had been dead just ten days. Now, the same nurse would care for Timothy.

  He was doing well and seemed to be getting over his epileptic fit. He hadn’t had one for several hours and doctors were pleased with his progress. It was drug-round time on Ward Four, the busy period for nurses, when all the children are given their various medications. Suddenly his condition deteriorated.

  By 6.30pm Timothy was dead.

  The cause of his death was given as ‘epilepsy and cerebral palsy’, and some who didn’t know him or his parents might have thought it was a blessed release. The day after he died Robert and Helen went to the Chapel of Rest at the hospital to see their little boy. Helen said: ‘I could have picked him up and brought him home; he was lying there like a little doll as though he was asleep. I wanted to say: “Wake up!-Timothy.”’

  The funeral service was held at the United Reform Church in Beeston, Nottingham, where the couple were regular worshippers, and Timothy was buried in the graveyard at Chilwell, a few miles away.

  As they laid him to rest Helen heard a blackbird singing so sweetly in a nearby tree that it made her turn to Robert and say: ‘That’s Timothy singing.’ She couldn’t help thinking, in a strange but somehow comforting way, that her little boy, who couldn’t talk but so loved the sound of music, had found his voice at last.

  To his parents, who were both strengthened by their Christian beliefs, there was to be some comfort. They discovered that both of Timothy’s corneas, unaffected by his blindness, had been used in transplant operations. The couple had only too readily agreed to donate them and, some time later, they received a letter from the London Eye Hospital thanking them for the gift which had saved the sight of two total strangers.

  Kayley Desmond was fourteen months old and a celebrity in the hospital. She had a cleft palate and couldn’t feed properly so, instead of going home, she had stayed in hospital for the first four and a half months of her life before going home.

  All the nurses and doctors had known blonde, blue-eyed Kayley almost since the day she was born and her parents Finbar, who was forty-five, and Margaret, thirty-eight, had virtually lived for months beside her bed, first in the intensive care unit and later in Ward Four.

  On 3 March, two days before Timothy Hardwick’s death, she was back in hospital, this time suffering from nothing more than a heavy cold, a rattly chest and a cough. Antibiotics hadn’t moved the infection, so her doctor decided she would be better off in hospital; Kayley was admitted again to Ward Four.

  It didn’t take long to get her back on the road to recovery and, after six days, doctors announced that she would soon be home. They were happy with her progress. The day couldn’t come soon enough for her parents; Margaret had stayed on at the hospital, sleeping in a side ward and leaving daughter, Zara, aged five to be cared for by babysitters. Husband Finbar didn’t leave most nights until 9pm or 10pm.

  Then, on 9 March, Kayley collapsed with respiratory failure which struck her, without warning, in the middle of the night. She had two attacks in three hours. Her mother witnessed the first at 1am when she saw Kayley lifting herself in her cot and then keeling over. She’d stopped breathing.

  Margaret later recalled: ‘I thought she was dead. I thought I’d lost her.’ Doctors and nurses dashed to Kayley’s side and the emergency team managed to start her breathing again.

  Margaret was in the red telephone box in the corridor at the entrance to the ward, telephoning relatives to tell them of the crisis, when Kayley was struck down again with another attack at 4am. This time it seemed that her heart had stopped beating.

  Margaret rushed back and police were sent to the couple’s home at 5.35am to alert Finbar who, without a telephone at home, had been unaware of Kayley’s fight for life. Again, the n
urses and doctors brought Kayley round but she was clearly desperately ill. Her brain had been starved of oxygen, which would become an obvious cause for concern later.

  Kayley was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit at the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham, twenty miles away. There her recovery was swift. By the time Finbar got to Nottingham, Kayley was breathing quite normally with the help of oxygen. He said: ‘The police had told me she’d taken a turn for the worse and my heart sank to the bottom.

  ‘I went there fearing the worst and yet when I got there her eyes were open. Within two days she had picked up completely.’

  She was taken back to Grantham after three days and eventually allowed home. Later she went into Nottingham City Hospital where surgeons successfully carried out an operation to repair her cleft palate. But there seemed no explanation for the mysterious two attacks that had nearly ended her life.

  Yik Hung Chan was called Henry by his parents. His father Eddie was boss of Mr Pang’s Chinese restaurant in nearby Stamford, just down the Al. Henry was two years old, a happy child with a boisterous sense of fun, when on Maundy Thursday, 28 March, he plunged twenty feet out of his sister’s bedroom window to the patio below. He was rushed by his frantic parents in their car to the casualty department at the hospital just over a mile from their smart detached home in Winchester Road.

  X-rays showed that Henry had two fractures of the skull and doctors admitted him to Ward Four for observation. His mother Jenny recalls: ‘He was still dizzy and had bad headaches. The following day he seemed a lot better and the doctors said they had thought about sending him home.’

  But, instead of getting better, Henry’s condition worsened over the Easter weekend.