How a mum saved her young daughter's life with a simple home video
This is the home video that every parent needs to watch – which saved the life of this mum's little girl.
Jade Rodford, 30, said doctors thought her daughter Ella, 5, had a severe cold when she fell ill.
But sensing something was wrong, Jade recorded a 20-second clip of her child which showed doubting doctors that she had all the signs of deadly sepsis.
The mum-of-two from Gravesend, Kent, in southeast England, has absolutely no doubt that the video she took saved her daughter’s life.
"I had an instinct that something wasn't right,” she said.
"Without that video I was just coming into hospital with a normal child with a high temperature.
"But the video showed the full extent of what was going on and how serious it was.
"If I hadn't taken the video they would have sent me home and Ella wouldn't be here."
Sepsis is a deadly condition in which the body's immune system produces an overactive and toxic response to an infection.
Ms Rodford said the toddler had been ill for a number of days before she began to deteriorate.
"Ella had a few colds, one after the other. She'd been unwell for a while,” the mum explained.
"I took her to the GP who said she seemed fine.”
Ms Rodford had then dropped her daughter off at mother’s place, and five minutes later the older woman was on the phone to her in a panic.
“My mum called me and said you need to come home, Ella can't breathe and has turned blue.”
She had rushed back to find her daughter looking “terrible” and with a very high temperature.
Yet, she still continued to be sent away from the hospital because Ella only appeared to display the symptoms of the condition when she was at home.
The mum decided to try a different tactic and the next time the toddler’s skin became pot-marked and turned purple, she started filming.
"I left it a little while and rang (emergency services) in the afternoon and said she didn't seem well at all,” the mum recalled, yet she got the same answer from the operator she had been receiving from the hospital and doctors.
"I felt like I was wasting their time,” Ms Rodford said.
"I took her in (to the hospital) and medics and the doctor said she had had some seizures."
But Ms Rodford said medics quickly changed tack when she showed them her video of Ella.
A doctor has watched it with three of her colleagues and immediately decided to rush the child into a treatment suite.
Within hours, the toddler had been diagnosed with sepsis.
The brave tot was hooked up to intravenous drugs and spent twelve days in hospital where she was gravely ill.
"She was OK, she gradually got her strength back but it was very, very scary,” Ms Rodford said, explaining that she had decided to release the video now — five years on from when she filmed it in November 2014 –– because she had only recently come across it again and thought it was something “every parent should see”.
"Everyone needs to know what to look for. I knew something was wrong with my daughter but I didn't know what – hopefully some good can come out of something horrendous happening to my daughter,” she said.
"If I hadn't taken that video there's no way Ella would be here."
Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com.
You can also follow us on Facebook, download the Yahoo News app from iTunes or Google Play and stay up to date with the latest news with Yahoo’s daily newsletter. Sign up here.
