THE MURDER OF INNOCENTS
On 21st February 1991, Liam Taylor, a 7 week old baby boy, was admitted to Grantham & Kesteven General Hospital with a chest infection.
He was given a chest X-ray, and Dr Nanayakkara diagnosed him with pneumonia. Shortly after his admission in to Ward 4, Baby Liam deteriorated, and needed physiotherapy to help him breathe. By the evening of 22nd February his condition seemed to be improving. Nurse Beverley Allitt was asked to watch him closely through the night.
Early the next morning, just before 4 am, Beverley Allitt called another nurse saying Baby Liam had gone a funny colour. When the nurse reached the ward, he had developed 'red blotches' over his body and was not breathing well.
Shortly afterwards Baby Liam crashed and the nurses immediately called the resuscitation team. They struggled for some time to get his heart restarted.
By 5.30 am on the morning of the 23rd February 1991 Baby Liam’s heart was beating again, but he was not breathing voluntarily. He was on a ventilator and showing no other signs of life. He then suffered a series of seizures. The doctors assumed this was because of the prolonged period required to get his heart beating again. They concluded that significant brain damaged had occurred, withdrew life support and Baby Liam died shortly afterwards.
The results of the autopsy and a second review of the heart tissues, showed that Liam Taylor had died of a myocardial infarction.
A heart attack.
In a seven week old baby.
Doctors struggled to make sense of the pathologist's finding, because they would only normally see myocardial infarction in an adult with a history of blockage and damage of the arteries. Baby Liam's heart tissues showed no pre-existing damage.
There was no logical clinical explanation for what happened to Liam. Beverley Allitt was then accused of murdering him.
Except there was a logical clinical explanation. An awful one.