'Mammy, I can't breathe' - young Limerick girl said as she was vomiting up blood before she died

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THE INQUEST into the sudden death of a 16-year-old girl with special needs from Bruff, heard that her mother called out and pleaded for help in University Hospital Limerick (UHL) before she was moved from the corridor into the resuscitation unit, where she died. 

Niamh McNally had been at UHL for a 14-day inpatient stay for the treatment of a collapsed left lung and pneumonia, after the young girl had been coughing up blood, suffering a fever, sore throat and cough, while she had also tested positive for Covid. 

However, she was discharged and described as “clinically stable” by a medical registrar, just six days before she presented at the emergency department (ED) on January 29, 2024 by ambulance, with extreme bleeding, and later died. 

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Earlier that day, Niamh's mother Carolyn O'Neill had gone to the shop in the morning to buy things that might entice her daughter to eat, as she had lost 4kg in weight throughout her two-week hospital stay. 

Upon discharge on January 23, Niamh's mother was told that she should bring up blood and that it was “better out than in,” but she told the coroner John McNamara in Limerick Coroner’s Court, that her daughter was “petrified” of bringing up the blood. 

On the day she went to the shop, Mrs O'Neill rang her daughter to check on her and she was coughing up huge amounts of blood, she told the coroner she drove home as quickly as she could and kept her distressed daughter on a video call. 

“I rang her and I'll never forget that phone call. There were mouthfuls and mouthfuls of blood”, Mrs O’Neill said, adding that she told her daughter to lie on her side, for fear she might choke on the large volumes of blood. 

“She was terrified and all by herself - I thought she'd be dead.

“The scene I saw was just horrible, her hair, her mouth and the mattress were all covered in blood. Niamh was getting upset seeing all the volume of blood.”

While waiting for the ambulance, Mrs O'Neill recalled that they “sat on the bed and cried” and she told her daughter “we need help now.”

“She was terrified, she was trembling,” the heartbroken mother added. 

The young teenager told her mother: “Mammy I thought I was going to die.”

When they arrived at UHL by ambulance, the teenager was admitted to the resuscitation unit, but was later moved out to the corridor. 

The inquest heard that her white blood cell count was elevated at 23 and Damien Tansey SC who represented the family told the inquest that she was “still moved into the corridor.”

“She was just left in the corridor and I was desperately trying to comfort Niamh who was obviously very scared. I expressed my extreme concern - she was really deteriorating,” Mrs O’Neill said. 

Shortly before she suffered a cardiac arrest, CPR efforts were unsuccessful, and she died, the young girl said to her mother: “Mammy, I can't breathe.”

The mother and daughter waited three hours before seeing a doctor on the day the young girl died and Mr Tansey said that the amount of time spent in the corridor without seeing a doctor is “haunting Niamh’s family.” 

“She was dying - she was really shutting down.

“Four times I called out for help, I know it's a busy place with lots of sick people,” Mrs O'Neill said, while struggling to hold back tears. 

When the young girl was vomiting large amounts of blood, Mrs O’Neill said she was cleaning up blood, fumbling for tissues on the wall in the corridor and was “left to do it - no one helped.”

Photographs were handed into the coroner showing two green hospital bowls filled with blood. 

When a porter tried to move Niamh McNally back into the resuscitation unit, there was so much blood that Mrs O’Neill asked them to pause for a few minutes. When she got into the unit, a doctor started her daughter on an oxygen bag, but had no assistance and Mrs O’Neill herself was pumping the oxygen bag, before a nurse arrived and she was told to leave. 

“A doctor came out later to tell me Niamh had died,” Mrs O’Neill told the inquest. 

Coroner John McNamara commended Niamh's mother for her composure and tremendous courage in recalling such a difficult time. 

An apology on behalf of UHL, signed by Sandra Broderick, Regional Executive Officer for the HSE Mid-West and Ian Carter, CEO Mid-West Acute and Older People Services, was read into the record at the start of the inquest. 

The apology acknowledged that the hospital “sincerely regrets the opportunities that were missed to intervene” and these “failings which ultimately led to Niamh's death, should not have happened.”

The letter also stated: “We are heartbroken that Niamh, a young life with so much potential, was taken from you too soon, and we know that she will be deeply missed by all who knew her.”

The 16-year-old from Ardykeohane Bruff was born with a congenital heart defect, had three open heart surgeries, two as a baby and one when she was eight. She also had special needs and DiGeorge syndrome. She had been under the care of consultants in Crumlin Hospital and the UHL stay, the month she died, was her first hospital stay as an adult, as she had turned 16. 

Her mother said that she had been through a lot, but “she was tough.” 

The inquest heard that Professor Deirdre McGrath carried out a bronchoscopy and took a biopsy during the two-week hospital stay. 

There was “impaired visibility” due to liquid around the lungs and she told the inquest that a clot was visible in the left lung and main airway, which Professor McGrath said was “fixed in place” and she did not pursue trying to remove it for fear of a haemorrhage.  

The inquest continues this afternoon and into tomorrow at Kilmallock courthouse.