Girl of 5 almost killed by hot tub bacteria
A GIRL of five nearly died from a brain infection she caught while playing in her family’s hot tub.
Amelia Hamilton ended up with three abscesses and spent two months in hospital.
Her mother has opened up about her daughter’s ‘gut-wrenching’ fight for life as she warned other parents against buying hot tubs to help ease lockdown boredom.
Jemma Hamilton, 26, told how Amelia, now seven, developed an ear infection in May 2018 – four months after the family, from Motherwell, Lanarkshire, bought their spa bath.
She said: ‘My mum cleaned the hot tub every day. She used the pH strips [to test alkalinity], too.
It wasn’t as if we were letting her get in dirty water.’
Amelia’s GP gave her antibiotics for her ear infection and her symptoms passed. But then she started to feel dizzy and had double vision. She had also lost a lot of weight and was squinting.
Her mother took her to an optician, who referred them to the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow, where doctors warned her illness was life-threatening.
Three pus-filled abscesses on her brain were putting pressure on her optic nerve.
Mrs Hamilton said: ‘You get that gut-wrenching feeling that the world is ending. That’s your baby. She is everything to me. It was absolutely horrible. Amelia was really brave. Kids are just really resilient, though.’
Amelia spent two months in hospital but made a full recovery.
She needed weekly MRI scans and hourly checks of her motor skills and reflexes, while three different antibiotics had to be administered via a drip.
Mrs Hamilton hopes to put families off buying hot tubs, as many seek to compensate for not getting a summer holiday.
She shared Amelia’s ordeal in a social media post this week, attracting more than 28,000 reactions, shares and comments.
Mrs Hamilton said: ‘I hope I can help save someone else in the same situation. It was a harrowing experience. I am so glad it can do something positive now. They [the doctors] said the only way an infection can get to your brain is through your ear.
‘It’s been water in the ear that has caused it. She hadn’t been swimming or anything like that.
‘The only thing she was in was the hot tub.’
Warm and moist environments such as hot tubs can be a breeding ground for bacteria.
Mrs Hamilton said: ‘They [the doctors] said that’s what it could be, especially as they are high risk for bacteria. It was really difficult to hear because you think, “I really shouldn’t have put her in it”.
‘You feel guilty. Could I have changed something by not letting her in? We got rid of the hot tub when she ended up not well.’