Nikki Ramsay from Hull was a fit and healthy 16 year old girl who loved animals and was a keen member of the Twirlers in her home town of Withernsea, East Yorkshire. She suddenly became gravely ill in March 2020 as the UK entered its first COVID lockdown. Tragically, Nikki lost her life to sepsis just over two weeks later. Her mother Angi has courageously chosen to share her daughter’s story in the hope of raising awareness of sepsis and as a tribute to Nikki.
It was on Friday 20th March 2020 that Nikki began to feel poorly. We had expected that she might start to feel better over the weekend, but she didn’t. I rang the GP surgery on two separate occasions and was told that she had gastroenteritis and acid reflux. Their advice was to wait and let it work its way out of her system.
On the Tuesday four days later – the first day of Lockdown One – Nikki suddenly realised that she had a rash, which she asked me to check. I was understandably worried that it might be meningitis. I pressed it with a tumbler, and it seemed to be ok. But when I checked with her brother he confirmed my fears that the rash was spreading so we immediately dialed 999.
The paramedics arrived and started to check her over. Her behaviour was erratic and she seemed to be acting strangely so they decided to take her to hospital. She was blue-lighted, with the sirens going, which she loved. When the paramedics called ahead to the hospital to let them know we were on the way, the operator advised them to begin treatment for meningitis. Once the call ended though, the paramedic told me that he suspected that Nikki had sepsis, and he asked me for permission to treat her for that instead, which I gave. Nikki was unaware that she had sepsis as she was going downhill so quickly. I had also never heard of it before so at the time it was very hard to digest what was going on.
Nikki was immediately taken to Hull Royal Infirmary but her condition was already deteriorating fast. Once she arrived she was given oxygen, fluids and antibiotics and was then taken for a scan. In the ten minutes that it took to do the scan her condition became so critical that the decision was taken for her to be placed into an induced coma on a ventilator. The scan results had revealed a tear in her oesophagus and two small holes in her lungs and the doctors warned us that putting her into the coma could therefore prove to be fatal, but they felt that needed to go ahead and do so.
The new COVID-19 restrictions meant that I was unable to stay with Nikki in hospital and had to ring the ICU for regular updates. The staff called me into the hospital twice in the next few days, when they didn’t think she was going to survive the night. We were told that Nikki’s kidneys and lungs were beginning to fail, and she would have to be put onto other machines to help her. She also had a DNR (a ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ order) put onto her records, as the doctors didn’t think her body would be able to cope with resuscitation.
Amazingly though she continued to hold her own, surprising everyone, and the DNR was removed. On the weekend of the 4th of April, just over two weeks after she first became ill, Nikki opened her eyes and was able to follow simple instructions like ‘squeeze the nurse’s hand’. We were all so excited! We suddenly had hope that she was on the road to recovery!
But just two days later, on Monday 6th April, I got a phone call that I wasn’t expecting to say that Nikki had taken a turn for the worse, and that they were unable to control her blood pressure. They said that I should get to the hospital as quickly as possible. For 13 days Nikki had fought hard for her life, but it had eventually all become too much for her. At 4:24pm on Monday 6th April she passed away peacefully.
It transpired that the form of sepsis that Nikki had was Fusobacterium Necrophorum Sepsis. The coroner told me that it was so rare that he had had to look it up to explain it to me. I will be forever grateful to all of the Twirling Community and the residents of Withernsea – I couldn’t have got through this without their help and support.
I always said that I would never use Nikki’s name to help raise awareness, but when she died we found out that Nikki had always gone above and beyond to help people. By sharing her story, I know she would approve and be so proud.