A 3 year old girl dies after a seizure at the airport after a family dream trip to the Maldives

A distraught couple recounted how their three-year-old daughter died after an epileptic seizure when returning from a dream vacation to the Maldives.

Ava Akers was taken to a hospital on the Maldivian continent before her health deteriorated and she was transferred to Bangkok.

She was diagnosed with a rare virus before she went into a coma and unfortunately died at home soon after, reports Birmingham Live.

His grieving parents, Phill and Helen, of Shropshire, have decided to launch a charity called Ava's Angels in his memory, bringing food and necessities to the Birmingham Children's Hospital in order to help families in the most disadvantaged times.

Phill, who works for a global digital computing company, said, "Ava was a healthy three-year-old girl who loved ballet, swimming, pre-school and was eager to start her studies in September.

"We are frequent flyers and took her to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Switzerland, Italy, Cyprus and Barbados, among other places." She loved traveling.

"We had an excellent holiday in the Maldives in March 2017: catching a sea plane for the island where we were staying, watching rays feed, catching hermit crabs on the beach and go snorkeling, which she immediately took.

"We were at the airport, on the mainland, about to take our flight to Dubai and then to Birmingham when we asked her if she wanted to pick something from the souvenir shop as a souvenir.

"She dropped it, which was not like Ava because she was never clumsy.

Then she dropped to the floor after a heart attack, she looked down, her arms tensed and her whole body shook.

"Helen caught her and I took her in my arms and ran around the airport to ask for help.

"She was choking, I had never seen a child go through a seizure before, it was so scary that I thought she was going to die.

"For about a minute, everything calmed down, then an Italian, another pbadenger, came to offer us moral support until the emergency services arrived." from his crisis and took us to the local hospital.

"It was around 3 am and we had no local currency, so in the Maldives you have to pay in advance and our credit cards have been blocked because it was a problem." An unusual request.

"Finally, a staff member at the airport paid for us to start treatment and pay it back. We were very grateful. He stayed in touch and sent teddies to Ava.

"Ava was stabilized but it took about two hours because we were given a list of medications and equipment and we had to go buy them at the pharmacy opposite and bring them back to the hospital.

"It was traumatic, but once they started, the staff did everything they could and it improved.

"We were moved to a larger hospital and spent a week there, returning to normal, singing, dancing, eating and watching Trolls on iPad – she loved the movie.

"The doctors thought that she was suffering from an infection of the throat and urine.The compound effect can cause seizures in children under five, but they said that she would be fine.

"We felt so lucky that she was going to be fine.

"We spoke to the medical manager of our insurance company to arrange a return flight.

"But that afternoon, Ava felt really bad, started having hallucinations and crying a lot, she lost balance and could not walk anymore.

"The doctors did an MRI and a lumbar puncture to examine the cerebrospinal fluid in her head and make sure it was not meningitis.

"They showed me MRI and I could see that it was awful.There were two large white areas that showed swelling in Ava's brain.They said we We had to go and pick her up at another hospital and she was in a coma.

"The insurance company organized a medical evacuation of the Learjet 45 with a doctor and a nurse on board, which took us to one of the best private hospitals in the world, in Bangkok.

"Ava went through other tests and was put on a resuscitation machine, her responsive flow was one, which meant that every minute she breathed only once.

"This is where she was diagnosed with Epstein Barr Virus Encephalitis (EBV), a form of glandular fever that, in minute cases, penetrates the blood into the brain, slowing it down and causing catastrophic damage. in a matter of hours.

"Ava has received immunoglobulin treatment, a host of antibodies to boost his immune system, and steroids in his brain.

"It's very rare in children under five, there are only about 20 children in the world who have it and 18 are completely cured.

"They said that Ava would be one of those who would recover and we hoped everything would be fine.

"Even though Ava was in a coma, they said we should go back to the UK.

"It was a great relief to go home and we thought she would have been rehabilitated and it would be a hell of a story for her when she was older.

"After three weeks in Bangkok, we were evacuated to the UK on a medical plane.One of us had only one space to make a decision if something was going on in full Helen said I had to go and she would fly back separately.

"It took 24 hours because we had to stop to refuel in India, Russia and Austria." Ava's temperature rose rapidly during the flight, but the nurses managed to stabilize it. spent the whole trip to fear that it will trigger a crisis.

"An ambulance was waiting for us at the Birmingham airport terminal and we were taken to an intensive care unit in Stoke because Birmingham was full.

"Ava spent three days there and was removed from the resuscitation unit as she began to breathe on her own – it was fantastic.

"But she never opened her eyes.

"She was transferred to the High Addiction Treatment Unit at Birmingham Children's Hospital, where we spent three and a half months recovering.

But she remained completely dystonic (a neurological movement disorder causing tremors) Her muscles began to wither, her eyes opened but she could not blink She could not swallow because her jaw was locked and she could not move her head.

"The doctors sat us down and said," Ava will not recover from that, she will never lead a normal life. The Ava you know is gone. "

"We have heard that being in a pressure vessel containing hyperbaric oxygen therapy can sometimes help, so we tried four days a week for six weeks, but that was not enough. not helped.

"We said maybe if we took her home, it might help, they said it was worth trying, because sometimes if you bring a child home, it can help to rehabilitate.

"But we did not know at that time that she was blind and deaf as a result of brain damage, her eyes were perfect, but her brain could not calculate the signals.

"We were taught to feed her and give her medications and muscle relaxants to comfort her so we could take her home on the weekends and then bring her back to the hospital. good to have it at home.

"After four months of hospitalization, the doctors asked us if we wanted to start palliative care or if we wanted a survival machine to keep it alive.

"We decided to go into hospice palliative care because we thought it was the nicest thing we could do when you have a child who is so badly ill.

"She had no quality of life.

"We kept bringing her home and on July 29, at home, our beautiful daughter Ava pbaded away.

"The Epstein Barr virus encephalitis that affects children is so rare that none of the consultants we met in the UK and abroad have ever met with." seen a patient with this disease and can not explain why this happened, which is very difficult for us to understand.

"The same vicar directed his baptism and funeral and said he was in charge of services for the 80-year-old who had not traveled to so many places like Ava.

"She loved traveling and we are delighted to have lived so much in her short life.

"She was so fun, loving and full of personality, she made us so proud.

As we lived at the bedside with Ava, we were extremely fortunate to have family and friends who supported us, bringing us food, supplies and emotional support during the worst period of our lives. .

When you do this, you forget to eat and drink and take care of yourself.

Inspired by Ava and aware of the importance of support when caring for an unhappy child, we launched Ava's Angels in March 2018 to provide support to families of sick children during hospital stays.

We recognize that not all families benefit from this support and we want to help them by developing our network of supporters, volunteers and sponsors.

We recently worked with the Birmingham Children's Hospital and we will have an official launch on Saturday, April 6th.

We have already worked hard to raise money: golf days, marathons, sporting events, etc.

Helen, who works as an accountant, was very involved in Dudley's Netball Leisure Club and the wider netball community did a lot to support us.

Every effort is made to ensure that volunteers can take meal orders for families and bring them the essentials, thus helping them to spend more time looking after their children when they need it most.

Learn more here and get in touch here: [email protected]