Doctor tells of fight to save overdose girl

A DOCTOR told a fatal accident inquiry yesterday how he battled to stabilise a critically-ill teenager before she was transferred to a specialist liver unit.

Dr Brian Digby was giving evidence at Glasgow Sheriff Court into the death of 19-year-old Danielle Welsh, who was given an overdose of intravenous paracetamol at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow.

Danielle died at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh on 24 June, 2008, from liver failure.

Dr Digby said he was called at home on June 22, 2008 and told Danielle, who had a rare syndrome and was four feet and weighed five and a half stones, was suffering from possible paracetamol toxicity.

The inquiry heard that tests taken on 22 June revealed a high level of paracetamol in Danielle's blood and signs of liver failure.

Danielle, from Glasgow, had been admitted to the hospital suffering from a suspected infection, but doctors had been unable to diagnose exactly what was wrong.

A junior doctor had prescribed intravenous paracetamol for pain in her hips and not realising it was weight-related had given her almost double the recommended dosage. Danielle received 20 doses of the drug.

Dr Digby, who was a senior registrar at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow at the time, said he and the West of Scotland Shock Team put Danielle on a ventilator to help her breathe and gave her drugs to stabilise her low blood pressure.

He said he was determined to make sure that she would be able to survive the hour-long journey to the specialist liver unit at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh.

He added: "I didn't want her to die in the back of an ambulance.

"That's not the way to die, in the back of an ambulance. I had to be happy that she was stable for transfer."

The inquiry before Sheriff Andrew Cubie continues.