Harry’s last hug
Mum’s heart-breaking goodbye cuddle for son denied meningitis jab – just minutes before disease claimed his life
‘I knew he wouldn’t wake up’
TENDERLY planting a kiss on her baby son’s head, Louise Done gives him a final goodbye cuddle.
Minutes later, Harry – his body bloated and purple after being ravaged by meningitis – slipped away in her arms.
Mrs Done, 33, and her husband, John, 39, decided to release the heart-breaking image in an effort to raise awareness of the disease.
Their son had missed out on being vaccinated against meningitis B by just a year. The national immunisation programme was introduced for all babies born from May 2015 – 12 months after Harry’s birth in May the previous year. Mrs Done, a legal cashier, said: ‘ We released the pictures because people don’t realise how brutal meningitis can be.
‘It ravages them before your eyes. Harry looked unrecognisable. The rash was black, he was swollen.. just doubled in size.
‘If the vaccination had been brought in nationally sooner it definitely would have saved him. It’s ultimately why he caught it, because he wasn’t protected. It’s really heart-wrenching.’
Mrs Done assumed her son was simply under the weather when he developed what seemed to be a cold on February 19, 2015.
She and her husband, a lorry driver, left Harry with his stepsister Shelby, 19, to keep an appointment to pay for their upcoming wedding but returned immediately after hearing he had taken a turn for the worse.
Mrs Done knew immediately something was seriously wrong and dialled 999. Paramedics gave Harry antibiotics and oxygen, then took him to hospital in Bolton, Greater Manchester.
But the disease struck so quickly there was little doctors could do. Harry suffered serious brain damage and the couple made the heart-breaking decision to turn off his life support