The mother of a young Kelty woman who died after taking an epileptic fit has told The Courier that she feels there is no closure despite a fatal accident inquiry into the death and said she still waits for her daughter to come through her front door.
Mrs Elaine Fotheringham (52) said that she felt her daughter, Kirsty McQueen, who was 23 when she took ill on December 3, 2007, after taking an epileptic fit, “had the right to fight” for her life, but feels she never got this chance.
She said she feels that she was made to look as if she did not care for her daughter on the evening she took ill.
Kirsty had been out shopping with her boyfriend John Whyte on December 3 when she began to feel unwell.
She phoned a friend, Darren Fetter, between 8pm and 9pm complaining of back pain and asked him to take her to hospital.
However, he could not help as he had been drinking alcohol. Around the same time she also phoned her mother who thought the problem might be muscular and advised she take a bath.
While taking the bath Kirsty suffered a fit and her boyfriend phoned for an ambulance.
The findings of the inquiry, which was held at Dunfermline Sheriff Court, state that Kirsty refused to allow an ECG check and also refused oxygen therapy from ambulance staff.
Kirsty had suffered from epilepsy as a child but had not taken a fit for 15 years.Refused hospitalRoderick Hannah, an ambulance technician with the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS), had told Kirsty he would prefer her to go to hospital where she could be under supervision if there was a recurrence of the fit.
Her mother had also advised her to go but she refused and stayed overnight at her home in Centre Street, Kelty.
The following morning she told her boyfriend that her body was “roasting” Mr Whyte phoned the emergency services at 6.05am and an ambulance crew arrived at 6.23am.
Mrs Fotheringham had asked that diazepam be given but the ambulance crew had said they could not administer this only a paramedic could. Kirsty was taken by ambulance to Queen Margaret Hospital in Dunfermline but suffered cardiac arrest and went into asystolic arrest en route to the hospital.
She was certified dead at 7.45am.
Sheriff Craig McSherry found that Kirsty died from sepsis (a form of blood poisoning), acute pyelonephritis (urinary tract infection) and epilepsy. He found “there were reasonable precautions” whereby the death might have been avoided and there were no defects in the workings of the SAS or any other medical agencies involved.
But on Thursday Mrs Fotheringham said she felt the inquiry was “one-sided” and she is still “looking for answers.”
“I feel I never got a chance at the inquiry,” she said. “It was like them against me.
“I’m still waiting for my lassie to come through the door I can’t believe this has happened.”Not looking for blameShe said, “It was not a case of having someone to blame for Kirsty’s death. I’ve asked my solicitor to get the investigative documents from the ambulance crew, which I’ve been told may take a couple of months, and I’ll go through them with a fine-tooth comb.
“The inquiry made out as if I wasn’t bothered about Kirsty taking ill, which is not the truth. I was never told there was anything seriously wrong with her.
“I had her son, Aiden, who was not a good sleeper, with me as I knew she couldn’t cope if she was coming out of a fit. I did not think she would die the next morning.”
She added, “If epileptics do not get help then they are in trouble. I’m still looking for answers, such as why did it take 23 minutes for the ambulance crew to get there?
“Kirsty had the right to fight for life but never got that chance there was nobody to help her. The inquiry was a waste of time.”
Depute fiscal Catriona Dalrymple had told the inquiry that if the cause of Kirsty’s death was sudep sudden death in epilepsy then the failure of the SAS personnel to give diazepam at 6.04am on December 4 might have been a casual link to her death.
She said the failure of a paramedic to attend until 49 minutes after the first crew attended “might be a defect” in the working system.
However, Sheriff McSherry found the “obligation to look after oneself” lies with the patient alone.”Questions to answer”He said, “In this case, Kirsty chose not to take advice and go to hospital. Even if she had gone to hospital, the sepsis might have caused irreversible damage.
“Mrs Fotheringham attended court every day and my sincere condolences go out to her and Kirsty’s family.”
Helen Eadie, MSP for Dunfermline East, said that she “understood” why the sheriff reached his conclusions, but that they raised “some serious” issues.
She said, “For me one of the most serious issues arising in the sheriff’s report is the break in the contract between the people of Fife and the Right For Fife decisions taken by NHS Fife over five years ago.
“At that time NHS Fife said all ambulances would carry paramedics and therefore the need for A&E hospitals would be reduced and my constituents need not worry and that the most important thing of all was to have a fully trained paramedic on site as urgently as possible in any emergency.”
“Now we are told in the FAI report that in Fife at the time of Kirsty McQueen’s death there were only 72 paramedics and 73 technicians. So we can see that not only are we getting a second-class A&E service and now Fife constituents have suffered a third-rate ambulance service devoid of the promised paramedics.”
She added, “While I praise the work of the ambulance personnel at every level this is simply not fair to them.
“The government has many questions to answer.”
An NHS Fife spokesperson said they would not wish to comment on the matter.
An SAS spokesman said, “We have every sympathy for Mrs Fotheringham’s loss, but the findings of the sheriff’s report are clear that there were no defects in the system of working in the Scottish Ambulance Service.”