Six-year-old transplant girl dies

Published on Thursday 18 June 2009 23:13

A GIRL who defied overwhelming odds to battle back after two liver transplant operations has died only weeks after celebrating her sixth birthday.

Erin Higgs had been fighting serious illness since she was born with biliary atresia, a disease which strikes newborn babies and destroys the duct conveying bile from the liver to the intestines.

She died at her home in Aberdeenshire on Wednesday. It is understood she had become seriously ill after contracting a stomach bug.

The girl had her first liver transplant only two weeks before her first birthday. The operation, however, was not successful because of an infection in the donor organ and Erin had to wait for two years for a second transplant operation at King's Cross Hospital in London.

Following the second transplant operation Erin suffered severe fits and her heart stopped beating.

She was later struck down with meningitis and septicaemia.

When doctors in London tried to take Erin off a ventilator, her heart stopped for more than 20 minutes but the medical team treating her managed to revive her using a combination of CPR and drugs.

Doctors had warned her parents, David Higgs and Linda Thom from Fraserburgh, that their daughter might never walk or talk again, but she continued to defy the odds and slowly recovered.

Just before Christmas last year, her parents were told that Erin would need only annual check-ups by specialists and the blood tests, which she previously had every month, would only be required four times a year.

And last November she became a first year pupil at the Anna Ritchie School, a special needs school at Peterhead.

A journal charting Erin's progress, written by her mum, was sent to staff at King's College Hospital who have used Erin's story to give hope and inspiration to other families facing similar ordeals.

Last night Ishbel Cruickshank, the head teacher at Anna Ritchie School, paid tribute to the primary's "special" pupil.

She said: "Erin was such a lovely little girl and the whole school has been devastated by her death.

"We have happy memories of Erin because she was always smiling and full of life – she had an impact on the entire school."