Kate's brush with deadly bug
Kate Lott shows no signs of the deadly whooping cough that almost killed her when she was just days old.
But her mother Karen says the death of Riley Hughes this week has brought back horror memories of having to resuscitate her tiny baby, who had black lips and was struggling to breathe.
Now 19 and a second year nursing student at Fremantle's Notre Dame University, Kate has no memory of being sick but has heard how her mother and father Greg feared the worst only days after her birth.
Mrs Lott said Kate had a slight cough and doctors had given her antibiotics, but she did not seem to improve.
One day they were at a friend's house and Mrs Lott suddenly decided to go over to check Kate who was seemingly sleeping quietly in a carry cot.
"I don't know why I went over and looked in, because there was no noise, but she was completely blue and I picked her up and started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until she started breathing," Mrs Lott said.
"I raced home and told my husband, and she stopped breathing again so I had to do mouth-to-mouth again."
Kate spent the next month in Princess Margaret Hospital, and though she made a full recovery, the memory of that time still sends a shiver down her mother's spine.
"You hear about the 'whoop' sound that some babies make, but the really scary thing with Kate was how silent it was," Mrs Lott said.
But the family were at least able to piece together how such a young baby could have been exposed to whooping cough after discovering that a friend, who became Kate's godmother, had whooping cough.
The friend had cuddled Kate in hospital, after first telling the family she would not visit because she had been diagnosed with asthma.
"She later found out it wasn't asthma at all. But when she said she wouldn't come to the hospital I said don't worry, asthma isn't contagious," Mrs Lott said.
Kate said her brush with death as a newborn had played a part in her decision to become a nurse. "I know I'm here because of the care I got as a baby, and it's something I've always wanted to do, to help sick people," she said.
