Daily Mail

Four-year-old girl ‘got sepsis from trying on new shoes’

- Daily Mail Reporter

A GIRL of four is believed to have contracted sepsis from trying on shoes.

Sienna Rasul fell seriously ill a day after trying out new pairs in her bare feet.

Doctors said the bacteria she had picked up came from footwear kept on display.

Sienna spent five days on a drip in hospital with her mother, Jodie Thomas, keeping a bedside vigil.

‘I was really shocked when the doctors said it was from trying on new shoes,’ the hotel worker, 26, said.

Describing the shopping trip to Cardiff, she added: ‘Normally she would have socks on but it’s summer so she was wearing sandals. The shoes she liked had been tried on by other little girls and that’s how Sienna picked up the infection.’

Miss Thomas took Sienna to the doctor when she started crying in agony the day after the shopping trip. The doctor spotted the infection and used a pen to draw a line around where it had spread. Miss Thomas said: ‘ By the next day it had spread up her leg and her temperatur­e was raging.

‘I drove her straight in to hospital, she was shaking and twitching – it was horrible. They said it was sepsis and thought they would have to operate ... but the doctors have managed to drain her leg.’

Sienna is now back home in Aberfan following treatment on the children’s ward at the Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil. Miss Thomas, a mother of three, yesterday urged parents to make sure their children wore socks when trying on shoes. ‘I knew you risk getting things like athlete’s foot from trying on shoes but blood poisoning is far more serious,’ she said. ‘ You don’t know whose feet have been in the shoes before you.’

Dr Ron Daniels of the UK Sepsis Trust said: ‘This frightenin­g case shows us that sepsis strikes indiscrimi­nately and can affect anyone at any time.’

The Daily’s Mail End The Sepsis Scandal campaign has highlighte­d the importance of early diagnosis for sepsis, which kills 44,000 Britons a year.

 ??  ?? Scare: Sienna with her mother
Scare: Sienna with her mother

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