Harrowing last picture of ‘ecstasy’ girl that her parents want you to see
HOURS from death, a 15-year-old schoolgirl lies comatose in a hospital bed after apparently taking ecstasy.
Distressing though it may be, Shakira Pellow’s family have released this picture as a stark warning to other teenagers tempted by drugs.
Miss Pellow, from Camborne, Cornwall, collapsed on Friday night and died the next morning after allegedly swallowing a pill bearing the logo of the toy brand Duplo.
Medics resuscitated her twice before she was put in a coma on life support. She died in the arms of her mother, Rita Hole, after a third heart attack.
Three of Miss Pellow’s 15-yearold friends, a boy and two girls, were taken to the Royal Cornwall Hospital at the same time and are said to be responding well to treatment.
Meanwhile, two 17-year- olds have been arrested on suspicion of supplying a controlled drug.
This harrowing photograph, released by Miss Pellow’s stepfather Lee Hole, bears similarities to the picture of Leah Betts, the 18-year- old whose death from ecstasy in 1995 sparked a wave of anti-drugs protests.
At the time it was taken, Miss Pellow’s family were optimistic she would make a full recovery.
‘I took the picture thinking I would show it to her later,’ Mr Hole said yesterday. We want this picture to stand in Shakira’s honour and memory as a warning to others. We want it to help others by showing it.’
‘We just want to raise as much awareness of this as we can. If we can save just one life, it will be worth it.’
The family had previously paid tribute to their ‘beautiful angel’, issuing a statement warning of the drugs menace. They said: ‘We want to just get the word out to parents, grandparents, teenagers, anyone who reads this to become more aware of the effects of drugs.
‘They’re not fun, they kill. We would not wish what we have been through over the past 48 hours on our worst enemy.’
Speaking to Cornwall Live, Mrs Hole, 47, said on Monday: ‘She was so naive. She was 15 and had her whole life ahead of her. She’s my youngest – she will always be my baby.
‘The medical staff said her temperature was the highest they had ever seen. They were using ice packs to try to cool her down.
‘What worries us is that there are going to have been thousands of those pills.
‘We have been checking pockets and her room because we have grandchildren and it would be awful if they would get hold of something.’
There have been a spate of high- profile teenage ecstasy deaths in recent months.
Last month, 15-year-old Han- nah Bragg died after swallowing a pill at a party to celebrate the end of her exams.
The award- winning showjumper, from Tavistock, Devon, was believed to have taken a potent form of the class A drug.
In May, Georgia Jones, 18, died at the Mutiny music festival in Portsmouth, Hampshire, after taking high-strength pills from a ‘bad batch’ of drugs.
In July last year, 15-year- old Leah Kerry died after taking ecstasy at a party to celebrate the end of the school term.
Her parents, from Salisbury, Wiltshire, said she thought she was ‘invincible’ and recklessly ‘rolled the dice’ with her life.