Extra special day for Henry
HENRY PELLS and his family will have an extra special Christmas this year – his first one at home after he spent the holiday period in hospital last year.
YOU wouldn’t know it to look at him now but baby Henry Pells’ heart stopped beating for 11 minutes.
But thanks to the skill of medics at Bridgend’s Princess of Wales Hospital he not only survived, but is thriving.
Now, at 16 months, he’s able to spend his first Christmas at home after spending the last one in hospital.
“He can eat three mince pies. We have to take them off him,” said proud mum Hayley Pells, 35.
And, on top of his ferocious appetite, he’s also come off all of the medications he needed after a terrifying and medically-baffling event caused his heart to stop.
“He was out for 11 minutes, which was a horrific amount of time,” said Hayley, of Cefn Coed, Bridgend.
The car mechanic and her husband Grahame, 36, could only watch as the resuscitation team and paediatric consultant Dr Neel Adkar gave him CPR in the A&E department at the Princess of Wales Hospital just over a year ago.
Henry, then just four weeks old, had been rushed in after he’d stopped breathing without warning at home.
Hayley and Grahame managed to get him breathing, but as doctors and nurses examined him and gave him fluid in casualty his heart stopped.
“They started to give him injections because he needed fluid,” said Hayley.
“He was on his third one and he crashed and he was on all the equipment so they could see how bad it was.”
Hayley said as Henry was so tiny, the lifesaving equipment normally used was too big for him so medics had to resort to basic CPR.
After 11 minutes they got his heart going and then he was ventilated by hand for around six hours until a specialist ambulance arrived to transfer him to Bristol Children’s Hospital.
His parents were told his lungs had completely collapsed and clots were found on his brain. He was put on a special ventilator and a bed that kept his body cool to prevent any further swelling of the brain.
Henry was also placed in an induced coma and Hayley said worryingly, when the drugs were withdrawn, he took a long time to come around.
But, ever the fighter, Henry soon started to breathe over the ventilator and even pulled his own feeding tube out.
As he got stronger, Henry was transferred back to the Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend, where the same medical team who saved his life were there to greet him.
He even became well enough to go home but a bout of bronchiolitis, which affected his breathing, landed him back on the children’s ward, where he was forced to spend his first Christmas.
A year on and Henry’s family, who run Avia Autos on the Bridgend Industrial Estate, have thanked medical staff by donating a biodegradable balloon Christmas tree to the children’s ward.
The balloon tree had just won the children’s award in the St Mary’s Church Christmas Tree Festival.
“We thought it was entirely fitting to donate it to the children’s ward,” said Hayley. “We were delighted that Dr Neel Adkar was able to accept the tree on behalf of the ward. All doctors do an incredible job, but in particular Dr Adkar is very special to my family. He, along with the inspirational paediatric and resuscitation team at the Princess of Wales saved my son’s life.
“It is with great thanks to all at the hospital that we will be able to spend our first Christmas as a family at home this year as Henry not only survived but is now 16 months old and thriving.”
Hayley added they are no closer to knowing why Henry stopped breathing and suffered a heart attack and have been told they may never know.
“The best explanation we had was that it was what causes cot death, but he was lucky he wasn’t in his cot,” said Grahame.